Five-Lobed Maple Is a Unique Shrub with Fine Foliage
Five-lobed maple (Acer pentaphyllum) is exceedingly rare, or possibly extinct, in the wild, but it can be found at specialty nurseries and is worth seeking as a true specimen plant…
Five-lobed maple (Acer pentaphyllum) is exceedingly rare, or possibly extinct, in the wild, but it can be found at specialty nurseries and is worth seeking as a true specimen plant for the garden. Despite its rarity, it is not a fussy grower. Its compound leaves resemble hands or stars and add interesting texture to the garden and movement when they flutter in a breeze.
Common name: Five-lobed maple
Botanical name: Acer pentaphyllum
Exposure: Full sun to part shade
Foliage: Each leaf on five-lobed maple is made up of five, or sometimes seven, slender leaflets that share a bright red stem. The leaves are deep green in summer and change to yellow or red in the autumn.
Habit: Five-lobed maple can grow to a multi-trunked, 30-foot-tall tree, but it typically remains as a 10- to 12-foot shrub in a garden setting. It grows in a vase shape.
Origin: Acer pentaphyllum is native to the mountains of western China. It was known to occupy a small hillside area but the wild population may have died out in recent years. It persists in cultivation thanks to the propagation of specimens collected in 1929 and seed collected in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
How to grow it: Five-lobed maple prefers full sun to part shade, acidic soil and regular moisture. This species can be very late to leaf out in the spring. Reliably hardy in USDA Zones 7 through 9, it may survive Zone 6 winters in a sheltered spot and with a winter mulch protecting the root zone.
Image credit: Daderot - Own work, CC0
