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Discovery and Introduction. Classification. A. velutinum forma glabrescens (Boiss. et Buhse) Rehder (1938). A. velutinum forma longilobum (Bornm.) Rehder (1938)
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Discovery and Introduction
The velvet maple is a native of the Caucasus and eastern Transcaucasus mountain ranges, and grows in northern Iran at elevations ranging from sea-level to 5, 500ft (1, 676m). It occurs sparingly in moist woods and mountain forests or, less commonly, in small groups.
Pierre Edmund Boisser discovered, described and named A. velutinum in his Diagnoses Plantarum Orientalium Novarum II in 1846. It was later found by Frederick Alexander Buhse in the Talysch Mountains, eastern Caucasus. He, together with Boisser, published an account of his journey to Transcaucasus and Iran (Persia) in 1860. Raddle also recorded it growing in the central Caucasus Mountains.
Boisser was a very wealthy and gifted Swiss botanist and patron, whose lifetime travels throughout southern Europe and the Near East were inspired by his mother and physician/botanist grandfather, who used to take the young Boisser on long treks over the Swiss Alps searching for plants. He studied botany under the great A. P. de Candolle at the Geneva Academy and later established his own botanic garden and herbarium. He was a prolifi c writer and wrote monographs on the Plumbaginaceae and Euphorbiaceae, travel books and fl ora, such as Diagnoses Plantarum Orientalium Novarum. The latter also included his description of A. heldreichii and two plants he named after his wife Lucille in 1840 - the beautiful clear blue Chionodoxa luciliae and Omphalodes luciliae - because they reminded him of the colour of her eyes, a memento of the tragedy of his life.
He married his cousin in 1840 and she accompanied him everywhere on his travels until she died of typhus during his Spanish/North African journey in 1849. During his lifetime search for plants, he described in detail more than 3, 500 plants himself, and another 2, 400 in collaboration with others such as Orphanides, von Bunge and Buhse. Most were included in his masterpiece Flora Orientales which he had the satisfaction of completing in 1884, the year before he died at 75 years of age.
This species is believed to have been introduced into cultivation by the German nursery of G. Van Volxem, who successfully grafted material from A. velutinum onto A. pseudoplatanus rootstock. In 1873, Dr Maxwell Tylden Masters, received three plants from Van Volxem, one each of A. velutinum (as A. insigne), A. velutinum var. vanvolxemii (as A. volxemii) and A. heldreichii subsp. trautvetteri (as A. trautvetteri), which he planted in his garden in Ealing, Middlesex. A year or so later, a collection of European maple species, including several A. velutinum var. vanvolxemii, all grafted, were sent to Westonbirt Arboretum by Van Volxem. These were planted in 1876 to form the nucleus of the arboretum's fi rst maple collection. Most are still thriving today, demonstrating how skilfully these trees were matched and grafted to their rootstocks.
Classifi cation
A. velutinum is closely related to A. caesium, A. heldreichii and A. pseudoplatanus, all of which are grouped together in the Series Acer of the Section Acer. All have medium-to-large 5-lobed coarsely- toothed leaves. The relatively large buds have several overlapping bud-scales which leave a wide ring of scars at the base of each year's shoots. The fl owers have 5 sepals and petals plus the 8 stamens inserted on top of the circular receptacle (extrastaminal), The fl ower clusters are on terminal and lateral shoots, Each winged samara has a large full rounded nutlet.
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The velvet maple shows considerable variation in the leaf size, amount of hairiness and greyness of the leaf undersides, the depth of the lobes and sharpness of lobe tips which, in the past, gave rise to a number of forms and varieties.
A. velutinum forma glabrescens (Boiss. et Buhse) Rehder (1938)
Leaves blue-green (glaucous) beneath but completely without hairs.
A. velutinum forma longilobum (Bornm. ) Rehder (1938)
This form diff ers from the type with 3-lobed leaves, the lobes long and narrow with the central lobe twice as long as the lateral lobes and divided two-thirds of the way to the leaf-base. This is an extreme form known only as a herbarium specimen.
A. velutinum var. obtusilobum Freyn et Sintenis (1902)
This is very like A. velutinum f. glabrescens with hairless leaf undersides but diff ers in having shallow blunt-tipped leaf lobes.
A. velutinum var. vanvolxemii (Mast. ) Rehder (1938) This variety is notable for the largest leaves of the species, up to 30cm long and wide, and glaucous undersides with pubescence confi ned to the main veins. The fl ower clusters are more compact and corymbose and its growth habit is more columnar than the type species. This variety was discovered in the Caucasus Mountains by Van Volxem and introduced into cultivation by him.
A. velutinum forma wolfi i (Schwer. ) Rehder (1938) Distinct form diff ering from the type by its glabrous purple-red leaf undersides, similar to the leaves of A. pseudoplatanus var. purpurascens. Named after Professor Egbert Wolff, St Petersburg Botanic Gardens.
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