vuren – Übersetzung – Keybot-Wörterbuch

This subspecies of the mono maple is said to grow only in Japan, and even there only in a small area. However, it came to Mustila from Sakhalin Island, where it also grows. It can be distinguished from mono maple by its rounded but almost always 5-lobed leaves, whereas the mono has 7 lobes. It is also easily confused with another close relative, the Cappadocian maple (A. cappadocicum), native to the mountainous parts of Caucasia.

In the wild, A. pictum subsp. mayrii grows about 10-15m high in snowy mountain areas. Planted, it is a beautiful round-headed tree, flowering in spring on bare branches before leaf-break. The inflorescence resembles that of the Norway maple (A. platanoides), both in size and in its yellow-green colour.

So far there has been little experience with growing this maple in Finland but hardy provenances are worth noting when the need is for the typically luxuriant and beautiful foliage of the Norway maple, but on a smaller tree. The leaves open bronze-red in spring, emphasising by their contrast the bright green of the flowers.

Sargent juniper is from the extreme east of Asia; it was received at Boston’s Arnold Arboretum from Japan’s Hokkaido Island in 1892 and named after the arboretum’s first director C. S. Sargent (1841-1927). The species also grows on all the other Japanese islands, the Korean peninsula, the Kuriles, and in the south of Sakhalin. Its usual habitat is among dense shrub thickets below mountain tops, meadows and screes, but in the more northern parts of its range mainly along rocky sea shores.

Sargent juniper is seldom grown but described as a beautiful low conifer shrub. It is a ground-creeper with long stems with dense side-branches. When young, the pale bluish-green leaves are needle-shaped but with age the branches also have scale-like mature leaves. It is usually dioecious, i.e. the male and female flowers are on separate individuals.

Sargent juniper is rare in Finnish nursery catalogues. It has spread from Mustila to enthusiasts’ collections early in this millennium when the Aboretum grew some plants from Russian seed. The variety ‘Glauca’, named in Holland by Grootendorst, is also an excellent blue ground-cover plant. The unpleasant camphor odour of the crushed leaves is an unmistakable means of identification.