Japanese maple
Acer palmatumJapanese maple is a small, rounded tree, often wider than it is tall. Its leaves are cut deeply into five or seven pointed lobes, each with fine, sharp teeth.
How to identify Japanese maple →
Yoshihiro Tokue, CC BY 4.0
Lookalikes
Japanese maple or Norway maple?
Both are planted for their purple leaves.
The quickest check
The quickest check is the leaf edge. Japanese maple: fine sharp teeth all round every lobe. Norway maple: only a few long teeth, tipped with hairs. No leaves on the tree? Check the whole tree.
At a glance
| Look at | Japanese maple | Norway maple |
|---|---|---|
| Leaf edge | Fine sharp teeth all round every lobe | Only a few long teeth, tipped with hairs |
| Whole tree | A low dome, 6 to 10 m, often wider | A neat rounded dome, to 30 m |
Two ways to tell them apart
Leaf edgeLeaves
Whole treeShape
The two trees
Norway maple
Acer platanoidesNorway maple grows into a neat dome. Its leaves have a few long teeth drawn out into fine hairs, and acid yellow flowers cover the crown in March or April, just before the leaves.
How to identify Norway maple →
In the app
See them side by side in Treely
- Both trees, part by partLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed through the year
- Every lookalike side by sideThe checks that settle it, for every pair people mix up
- A short round each dayUntil you can tell them apart at a glance
- The full GuideBoth trees written up in full, with where to find them
Free to download.
Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.
Photographs: Yoshihiro Tokue (CC BY 4.0), Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), Marco Mussita (CC BY 4.0), steve_mcwilliam (CC0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.