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Aceraceae family

Tatarian Maple Acer tataricum

Also known as: Tatar Maple

Tatarian Maple is an introduced perennial tree, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 22 ft.

More about this plant

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. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0) — Drought tolerance · Shade tolerance · Wet-soil tolerance
Hardiness
≥ zone 5 derived from its U.S. range
Drought tolerance
Moderate
Shade tolerance
Moderate
Wet-soil tolerance
Low waterlogging
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
22 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Deciduous broadleaf
In the garden
Sub-canopy / understory layer — Sits in the understory of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
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).
✦ Bees 9 bee visitors
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 2 birds

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

Recorded eaten by 2 birds species (fruit, seed, browse):

Turdus merula · Blackbird Bombycilla garrulus · Bohemian Waxwing
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).
Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).
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 (24) 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)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)
[14] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[15] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[18] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[19] Stress tolerance — Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0)
[21] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[22] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[23] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[24] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
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