Acer triflorum | three-flowered maple

ARCHIVED PLANT. This page serves as reference only. We are no longer propagating this plant.

Please note: plants are currently much larger than shown. Photo is three years old. These are tall plants and safe shipping is expensive. Nursery pickup recommended.

Three Flowered Maple is an outstanding small tree that provides year-round interest to the landscape. Clusters of three flowers (hence the names) appear in April and are a delight to pollinators. Blooms are followed by foliage which emerges a lovely lime-green before deepening to a darker green with silvery undersides. Leaves turn vibrant shades of orange and red in fall before dropping to reveal outstanding cinnamon brown peeling bark.

Easy to grow in acidic soil in full sun to part shade. Intolerant of drought. Grow it as a specimen tree or as an understory or woodland plant.

Distinctions: Winner of an Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society. Winner of a Cary Award from the New England Botanic Society, which honors outstanding plants for the New England landscape.

Zones: 4 to 7
Family: Sapindaceae
Type: Deciduous Tree
Height: 25 to 30 ft.
Spread: 25 to 30 ft.
Exposure: Full Sun to Part Shade
Soil Conditions: Average, medium, well-drained soil
Bloom Time: April
Bloom Color: Yellowish-green
Native Range: Northeast Chine and Korea

Special Characteristics

Outstanding fall color
Winter interest

image credits

Images 1 (mature form) Gmihail at Serbian Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image 2 (samaras) Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image 3-4 (foliage and woodland form) Ali McEnhill at Stonecrop Gardens, Coldspring, NY
Image 4 (fall color and trunk) Kaiser 16, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image 5 (Japanese Garden in Moscow) Andrey Korzun, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image 6 (buds) Dan Keck from Ohio, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image 7 (trunk) Photo by David J. Stang, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons