Acer griseum is one of the most beautiful of all unusual small trees, suitable for gardens of all sizes. The dark green, trifoliate leaves densely covered beneath with blue-white downy hairs, colour splendidly in autumn turning the whole crown deep crimson or red. The old dark red or chestnut bark flakes and peels back to reveal the new, smooth, orange-red bark beneath. Hardy throughout the British Isles.
Although quite similar at first glance, Aesculus indica is usually a slightly smaller tree than the common horse chestnut (A. hippocastanum), and differs in having smooth, flaky, grey-green (rather than red-brown) bark. It also flowers later, its pinkish-white flowers appearing in strikingly beautiful spikes in July........
Aesculus turbinata is a rare tree native to Japan, winter buds very resinous. Leaves like those of A. hippocastanum, consisting of five to seven stalkless leaflets, but more regularly toothed and tapering more gradually at the apex. On young plants the remarkable large leaves are obovate, and as much as 40cm long and 15cm wide,the whole leaf with...
Aesculus wilsonii is a very rare species of Horse Chestnut native to China, and has handsome large leaves which emerge bronze-red in colour and gradually darkens through shades to green later in summer. Established trees have attractive white flowers with yellow turning red centers in tall upright spikes in early summer.
Cercidiphyllum japonicum is a beautiful tree which can grow to more than 30m in its native Japan and China, however in Britain plants rarely reach more than 15m.It has a rounded conical crown and attractive heart shaped leaves in opposite pairs. Katsura is a plant which gives interest all year round, with its constantly changing colour displays...........
Cornus macrophylla, Large-leaf dogwood forms a small, often low-branched or multistemmed tree, usually no more than 8 or 10m in height when grown in the open in gardens. The species is known to top 20m in the wild, but such plants would have been heavily shaded and very old. In cultivation, branching is much like that of Cornus controversa (table dogwood), with strongly upright stems and horizontal tiers of branches. Each branch terminates with a handful of curving, shortly ascending twigs with prominent pointed buds. The grey-brown bark is smooth and attractively mottled in youth, eventually becoming plate-like with age.