Maple with extra bark

This rough-barked maple (with Clivia flower peeping through when photographed in early October) looks distinctive enough to warrant its own botanical name. But no, this is a cultivar of the rather more common Acer palmatum, the so-called Japanese Maple.

The leaves are your typical Japanese Maple leaves.

Curator of the Southern China Collection, Terry, tells me this cultivar is known as 'Arakawa', or sometimes 'Ganseki Momiji' or 'Nishiki Sho'. More prosaically, in English at least, it's called Rough Bark Maple.

The bark is corky in texture, becoming deeply fissured and cracked as it ages. There are other rough-barked maples, such as the Pine Bark Maple, also a cultivar of Acer palmatum. It's called  'Nishiki Gawa', and has even more deeply fissured bark. 

Nishiki, I understand, is a Japanese word for the richly embroidered fabric we sometimes call a brocade, or 'most beautiful', and sho I think is something to do with flying (but there are other meanings).

Ganseki means rock and Momiji is used for trees with leaves that change colour to red, as happens in this cultivar in autumn. Maybe the texture of the trunk is stone-like. The leaves are certainly red in autumn.

Arakawa means simply rough-barked.

There are other rough-barked maples, such as the Pine Bark Maple. It is also a cultivar of Acer palmatum, called 'Nishiki Gawa'. The bark of this selection is even more deeply fissured. 

For many years, Terry hasn't sure what this specimen was called and it was only when she saw a social media post back in October by plant enthusiastic and grower, Don Teese, that she made the match. It seems to be the good fit.

There are a thousand or so cultivars of the Japanese Maple, most of them varying in leave shape and dissection. Generally propagation has to vegetative to retain the selected traits. That true for Arakawa, which is grown from cuttings, either directly rooted or grafted.

It seems to be a popular selection for gardens in Japan, and for bonsai worldwide. We have a single specimen, near 'H Gate' on Alexandra Avenue near Yarra River (Birrarung). In these pictures it is just coming into leaf after winter. 

It's a heavily shaded spot with plenty of competition for light and root space. That, along with some enthusiastic possums means it is a little scrappy in form. Still, that bark is beautiful and the tree will no doubt improve with age.