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Aceraceae family

Amur Maple Acer ginnala

Deer-resistant — Low palatability to browsing deer. Usually passed over, but no plant is truly deer-proof when food is scarce.

Amur Maple is an introduced perennial tree, found in Canada and the lower 48 states. It grows to 20 ft and blooms Apr in full sun – part shade, with brown fruit.

More about this plant

Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala, the Amur maple, often treated as a distinct species Acer ginnala, is a plant species with woody stems native to northeastern Asia from easternmost Mongolia east to Korea and Japan, and north to the Russian Far East in the Amur River valley. It is a small maple with deciduous leaves that is sometimes grown as a garden subject, in parks, or as a street tree. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
USDA PLANTS — Sun · Soil & moisture
USDA — SoilPH — Soil pH
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Fertility Requirement / Soil Adaptation — Fertility need · Adapts to
USDA — Temp-Min °F — Hardiness
Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0) — Drought tolerance · Shade tolerance · Wet-soil tolerance
Sun
Full sun – part shade
Soil & moisture
Medium moisture
Soil pH
6.1–7.5
Fertility need
Medium
Adapts to
Coarse (sandy), Medium (loam)
Hardiness
USDA zone 4+
Drought tolerance
Moderate
Shade tolerance
Moderate
Wet-soil tolerance
Low waterlogging
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Height, Mature — Height
Derived (allometric) — width = height × functional-class crown ratio fit on USDA Urban Tree DB · Tallo; method per Jucker et al. 2022, Pretzsch et al. 2015 — Mature width
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Planting Density (per acre) — Spacing
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Growth Rate / Spread / Growth Form / Lifespan / Active Growth Period / Seed Period — Spread · Growth rate · Growth form · Active growth
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) · USDA PLANTS — Foliage
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Fruit/Seed Color / Fruit Persistence — Fruit
Lifespan: USDA’s lifespan scale for trees: short = under ~100 years · moderate = 100–250 · long = over 250. Balsam fir and other short-lived conifers are genuinely short for a tree, not short like an annual.
Height
20 ft
Mature width
~ 17 ft wide DERIVED derived estimate — open-grown crown allometry (height × growth-form ratio); not a measurement
Spacing
8–16 ft apart from USDA planting density
Spread
None — clumping
Growth rate
Rapid
Growth form
Multiple stems
Lifespan
Perennial · moderate
Foliage
Deciduous broadleaf · medium texture
Active growth
Spring & summer
Fruit
Brown
In the garden
Sources · In the garden
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Propagation Method / Commercial Availability — Propagate by · In the trade
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Germination (cold stratification) — Seed starting
USDA PLANTS — Seed Period — Seeds ripen
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Foliage Texture / Browse Palatability / Resprout — Deer browsing · Resprouts if cut
Propagate by
Seed, Bare root, Container
Seed starting
Needs cold stratification a cold-moist spell before it germinates
Seeds ripen
Summer – Autumn seed-collection / harvest window
In the trade
Routinely available
Deer browsing
Low often deer-resistant
Resprouts if cut
Yes regrows after top-kill
Sub-canopy / understory layer — Sits in the understory of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Apr — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — BloomPeriod
When to sow · for your area

Sow timing keys off your local last- and first-frost dates.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~297 caterpillar species · keystone genus

Acer supports ~297 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a powerhouse genus.

Recorded feeding on Acer in North America, including:

Abagrotis barnesi · owlet moth Abagrotis orbis · owlet moth Abagrotis reedi · owlet moth Acerra normalis · owlet moth Acharia stimulea · Saddleback Caterpillar Moth Achatia distincta · Distinct Quaker
+ 8 more species →
Acleris chalybeana · Lesser Maple Leafroller Acleris negundana · leafroller moth Acleris semiannula · leafroller moth Acronicta americana · American Dagger Moth Acronicta dactylina · Fingered Dagger Acronicta funeralis · Funerary Dagger Acronicta hastulifera · Frosted Dagger Moth Acronicta impleta · Yellow-Haired Dagger
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Wildlife & visitors 1 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Amur Maple — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

1 adult butterfly & moth species is recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Elkalyce argiades
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Mature width Derived

For woody plants that have a height but no measured crown, we estimate width = height × a crown-to-height ratio fit for that plant’s form (conifers narrower than broadleaf trees, shrubs widest), calibrated on our measured open-grown crowns and capped at the largest one ever measured. A measured crown always wins; herbaceous plants get nothing (no anchor).

Honest limits: A coarse class-median estimate for garden-scale spacing, not a measurement; woody single/multi-stem forms only.

Allometric basis: Jucker et al. 2022 (Tallo); Pretzsch et al. 2015; McPherson et al. 2016 (USDA Urban Tree DB).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (28) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[18] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[20] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[21] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[23] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[24] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[26] Stress tolerance — Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0)
[27] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[28] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
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PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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