Striped Maple

Acer pensylvanicum

Striped maple is the understory tree for gardeners who notice detail. The bark is the feature: green with long white vertical stripes that glow against dark forest backgrounds, visible year-round, genuinely unlike any other tree in a native landscape. The large three-lobed leaves turn clear yellow in fall. It's a quiet, elegant plant that rewards slow looking. In the wild, striped maple lives as a small understory tree in cool, moist Appalachian forests. exactly the kind of deep shade where most trees refuse to grow. It's the plant for the north-facing slope, the heavy shade under old oaks, the cool ravine. Drooping clusters of yellow flowers in late spring feed native bees, and the samaras are taken by birds and small mammals.