One often hears transplants from the East coast complain about the lack of fall color here in the Pacific Northwest. They are in need of a vine maple, which can turn any color from yellow, through orange, to dark red, providing an autumn focal point to a garden or forest understory.
In my opinion, vine maple is a perfect tree for a small garden, with its delicate palmate leaves, elegantly curved limbs, and red and white flowers in the spring. Vine maple is part of the palmatum group of maples – closely related to Japanese and Korean maples. Like them, it has several named cultivars, including a few dwarf forms.
Vine maple seeds should be sown fresh. Even then, germination can be slow and finicky. However, vine maple is easy to propagate by layering. In the wild, the curved branches often loop down and root where they touch the ground, forming shrubby thickets.
Although vine maples do not grow large enough to provide commercial lumber, their wood is hard and dense, useful for tool handles. Traditionally, it was used to make bows, arrows, snowshoe frames, and dipnets. Pliable young shoots can be used in basketry. According to the Thompson Ethnobotany, the wood was burned into charcoal and mixed with brown sugar to treat dysentary and polio. As with other maples, the sap can be used as a sweeetener.
Its native range is from Southern Alaska through Northern California, keeping within about 300 kilometers of the coast. Vine maple is a favorite summer browse for black tailed deer and elk, and is favored by livestock as well. Vine maple thickets often contain high populations of mountain beaver. The seeds are eaten by many birds and small animals.
Although I haven’t heard of any changes to the name Acer circinatum, according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, the plant family Acaraceae no longer exists. The genus Acer is now part of the Sapindaceae.
Bibliography
Turner, Nancy et al.
Thompson Ethnobotany
Royal British Columbia Museum, 1990
Uchytil, Ronald J. 1989. Acer circinatum. In: Fire Effects Information System
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/shrub/acecir/all.html
Fertig, Walter
“Farewell to Aceraceae: Changes in the Angiosperm Family Tree”
Sego Lily (Newsletter of the Utah Native Plant Society) September 2010
Strange Meanders 