Acer sempervirens


Acer sempervirens is a species of maple native to southern Greece and southern Turkey.
Acer sempervirens is an evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub or small tree, one of the very few evergreen species in the genus. It grows to tall with a trunk up to in diameter. The bark is dark grey, smooth in young trees, becoming scaly and shallowly fissured in mature trees. The shoots are green at first, becoming dull brown in the second year. The leaves are opposite, hard and leathery in texture, long and across, glossy dark green with a yellow petiole, variably unlobed or three-lobed ; the lobes have an entire margin. The flowers are yellow-green, produced in small pendulous corymbs. The fruit is a double samara with two rounded, winged seeds, the wings long, spread at an acute angle.
It is one of the most drought- and heat-tolerant species in the genus, occurring on dry, sunny hillsides at moderate elevations. It is closely related to Acer monspessulanum from further north and west in Europe, differing from it in being a smaller, often shrubby tree, and in its smaller, evergreen leaves.

Cultivation and uses

Cretan maple is occasionally grown as an ornamental tree in western Europe; it was introduced to Britain in 1752.