Acer ukurunduense ("Ogarabana")

Japanese name: オガラバナ （麻幹花）
Scientific name: Acer ukurunduense

[Overview]
A deciduous shrub or small tree, usually about 3 m tall and sometimes reaching 10 m, growing in mountains to the subalpine zone.
First-year branches are densely covered with yellowish-brown hairs, and second-year branches are tinged with blackish purple.
Leaves are opposite, 6–15 cm both long and wide, palmately divided into 5–7 lobes.
On the upper surface of the leaf the veins are sunken, giving a wrinkled look, and there are sparse short hairs.
The underside of the leaf is covered all over with short grayish-white hairs, especially dense on the veins.
The leaf margin has notched serration.
The petiole is long and tinged with red.
The leaves turn red to yellow in autumn.
At the tip of the flowering branch, a slender cylindrical inflorescence 10–20 cm long including the stalk stands erect, bearing as many as 100–200 flowers; male flowers and bisexual flowers bloom on the same tree (andromonoecious).
The inflorescence has curled hairs.
The flowers are yellowish green, the petals are very thin, and in male flowers the stamens are longer than the petals.
The fruits are about 1.5–2 cm long and borne in pairs, each with a propeller-like wing, spreading at an acute angle.

[Notes]
The Japanese name derives from the wood being as soft as ogara (the stalks of hemp with the bark stripped off).

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