It’s hard to keep up a wildflower blog in December in the mid-Atlantic, so I’m taking a break.  Expect only a few posts over the next few months.  If we have a typical (whatever that means) winter, by mid or late March the spring beauties and harbinger-of-spring will be coming back, and so will I.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from a full-moon maple (Acer japonicum) in my front yard.  This is an extraordinary tree of graceful form and bright autumn color, and rather unusual to find in the nursery trade.  Much more common is Japanese maple (Acer palmatum).

And one more rant about common names vs. botanical names.  I didn’t mix it up. You’d expect Japanese maple to be A. japonicum, but nope!  Japanese maple = A. palmatum; full-moon maple = A. japonicum.

These pictures are corrected for exposure but otherwise untouched.  The colors really are this vivid.

maple leaf on hellebores (Helleborus hybrids)

maple leaf on Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra)