Acer erianthum Schwerin

Shrubs or small trees, to 15 m tall, andromonoecious. Bark greenish gray. Branchlets glabrous; winter buds small, scales 8, pilose along margin. Leaves deciduous; petiole 5-9 cm, glabrous; leaf blade abaxially light green, adaxially green, 9-10 × 8-12 cm, papery, abaxially usually slightly pubescent, adaxially glabrous, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, base rounded or truncate, occasionally subcordate, usually 5-lobed, rarely 7-lobed; lobes ovate or triangular-ovate, apex acuminate. Inflorescence erect, compound paniculate racemes, 6-9 × 1-1.8 cm, pilose or glabrous, numerous flowered. Pedicel 3-4 mm, slender. Sepals 5, ovate or broadly ovate, outside glabrous, villous especially along margin, apex obtuse. Petals 5, obovate, slightly shorter than sepals. Stamens 8, 3-4 mm in staminate flowers, much shorter in pistillate flowers; filaments glabrous. Disk glabrous, extrastaminal. Ovary densely villous with yellowish hairs; style nearly glabrous. Fruit greenish purple; nutlets nearly round, ca. 5 mm in diam., strongly convex and veined, densely pubescent when young; wing including nutlet 2.5-3 × ca. 1 cm, wings spreading horizontally, slightly acutely, or obtusely. Fl. May, fr. Sep.

S Gansu, N Guangxi, W Hubei, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.

● Mixed forests; 1000-2300 m.

Acer oxyodon Franchet ex W. P. Fang; A. stachyanthum Franchet ex W. P. Fang (1939), not Hiern (1874).

Acer erianthum is an Asian species of maple. It has been found only in China (Gansu, Guangxi, Hubei, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan).

Acer erianthum is a tree up to 15 meters tall with greenish-gray bark. Leaves are non-compound, thin and papery, usually with 5 long tapering lobes but occasionally 7.