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.[1] [2]
Acer tataricum is a deciduous spreading shrub or small tree growing to 4- tall, with a short trunk up to 20- 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- long and 3- 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- long. The flowers are whitish-green, 5- diameter, produced in spreading panicles in spring as the leaves open. The fruit is a paired reddish samara, 10- long with a 2- wing, maturing in late summer to early autumn.[1] [2] [3]
Subspecies accepted by the Plant List maintained by Kew Gardens in London:[3]
Some botanists treat Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala as a separate species Acer ginnala.[4] [1] 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.[1]
Tatar maple is occasionally grown as an ornamental plant in gardens throughout Europe and also in North America.[1] In Russia, it is valued in farmland shelterbelts.[2] It is locally naturalised and sometimes invasive in eastern North America.[5]