Features:
Common name: Montpellier maple
Family: Aceraceae
Origin: Mediterranean Europe
Height at maturity: 8 meters
Hardiness: -15°C
Exposure: sunny
Plant type: tree, shrub
Vegetation: perennial
Foliage: deciduous
Flowering: spring
Flower color: greenish yellow
Type of soil: preferably calcareous, rocky, poor or fertile soil
Watering: Normal
Use: in the garden, isolated, hedges
Diseases and insect pests: phytotpes (harmless to the tree)
Toxicity: –
Storage of seeds: 2 years in a dry place away from light at 3/4°C (refrigerator)
Description:
It is a shrub or small tree with dark bark. Generally small in nature (it reaches an average of 5 meters), it can exceed 10 m when cultivated. Its opposite leaves, deciduous, with 3 entire lobes, shiny dark green above, and with a long petiole. In autumn, its leaves take on brilliant red or golden hues which make it very spectacular. The tree can live up to 120 years
Montpellier maple flowers in April or May. Its flowers, of yellow-greenish color, are either male or female, but the two sexes coexist on the same individual, and even within the same corymb: it is a monoecious plant. Female flowers have a shorter and usually thicker petiole than that of male flowers.
The fruits are disamares with nearly parallel wings, sometimes partially overlapping.
The term “monspessulanum” refers to the city of Montpellier in France.
