Acer buergeranum (trifidum)

Acer buergeranum, the trident maple, is named for the neat three-lobed leaves, small and glossy, that point forward like the tines of a fork. This is a small, slow to moderate deciduous tree of eastern China, Korea, and Japan, long held in cultivation across East Asia and carried into Western gardens in the nineteenth century. Few maples wear age so gracefully: the bark exfoliates in gray, orange, and brown plates, revealing a warm inner bark that becomes one of the tree's quiet pleasures in winter.

Trident maples have been a favored bonsai subject for centuries, prized for their fine ramification, their tolerance of root confinement, and the ease with which they take to training. In the open ground the tree makes a tidy rounded crown, flushing with bronze-tinged new growth in spring and finishing the year in variable color, sometimes a soft yellow, more often a mix of orange and red.

Tough and adaptable, these trees shrug off wind, drought, pollution, salt, and compacted soil, which makes them an excellent small shade or street tree for difficult urban sites as well as a handsome lawn specimen. Site these trees where the peeling bark can be read at close range, give them sun and decent drainage, and they ask little else.