Acer tataricum, the Tatar maple or Tatarian maple, is a species of maple widespread across central and southeastern Europe and temperate Asia, from Austria and Turkey, and in some circumscriptions, with a disjunct population in eastern Asia in northern and central China, Japan and the Russian Far East. The species is named after the Tatar peoples of southern Russia; the tree's name is similarly commonly also misspelled "Tartar" or "Tartarian" in English.

Description

Acer tataricum is a deciduous spreading shrub or small tree growing to 4 - 12 m tall, with a short trunk up to 20 - 50 cm diameter and slender branches. The bark is thin, pale brown, and smooth at first but becoming shallowly fissured on old plants. The leaves are opposite and simple, broadly ovate, 4.5 - 10 cm long and 3 - 7 cm broad, unlobed or with three or five shallow lobes, and matt green above; the leaf margin is coarsely and irregularly toothed; the leaf petiole is slender, often pink-tinged, 2 - 5 cm long. The flowers are whitish-green, 5 - 8 mm diameter, produced in spreading panicles in spring as the leaves open. The fruit is a paired reddish samara, 10 - 12 mm long with a 2 - 3 cm wing, maturing in late summer to early autumn.

Taxonomy

Subspecies accepted by the Plant List maintained by Kew Gardens in London: Some botanists treat Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala as a separate species Acer ginnala. The two differ conspicuously in the glossy, deeply lobed leaves of A. ginnala, compared to the matt, unlobed or only shallowly lobed leaves of A. tataricum, and are separated by a roughly 3,000 km range gap.

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Cultivation and uses

Tatar maple is occasionally grown as an ornamental plant in gardens throughout Europe and also in North America. In Russia, it is valued in farmland shelterbelts. It is locally naturalised and sometimes invasive in eastern North America.