Girasol, Japanese maple or smooth Japanese maple, Acer palmatum
Girasol, called Japanese maple or smooth Japanese maple is a species of woody plant native to Japan, North Korea, South Korea, eastern Mongolia, and southeast Russia.[2] Many different cultivars of this maple have been selected and they are grown worldwide for their attractive leaf shapes and colours. Over 1,000 cultivars have been chosen for particular characteristics, which are typically propagated by asexual reproduction such as cuttings, tissue culture, budding or grafting. Some of these are not in cultivation in the Western world or have been lost over the generations, but many new cultivars are developed each decade.[3] Cultivars are chosen for phenotypical aspects such as leaf shape and size (shallowly to deeply lobed, some also palmately compound), leaf colour (ranging from chartreuse through dark green or from red to dark purple, others variegated with various patterns of white and pink), bark texture and colour, and growth pattern. Some cultivars are sturdy trees that are larger and more hardy or vigorous than is typical of the species. Many are shrubs rarely reaching over m in height. A few very delicate cultivars are grown in pots and rarely reach heights of over 30 cm. Some of the more distorted or dwarfed cultivars are grown from witch's brooms, but more are based upon clippings taken from plants that are mutated and/or have been artificially selected over many generations
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Keywords: acer, autumn, colors, colours, garden, girasol, japanese, maple, oriental, ornamental, palmatum, shrub, smooth
