This modestly sized tree boasts richly coloured autumn foliage and high tolerance of urban pollution, making it an ideal street tree, and it may yet prove popular in future commercial forestry. Introduced surprisingly late to Britain and Ireland, from 1683.

Native to much of Europe including Scandinavia.

Monoecious, hermaphrodite flowers, mainly insect-pollinated. Fruits are double samaras, dispersed by gravity and wind.

Medium (to 30m), often with a broad-domed canopy. Bark grey, fairly smooth until older. Twigs smooth with opposite red-brown buds that exude milky latex when broken, unlike other featured maples. Leaves green, alternate, with five pointed, large-toothed, whiskered lobes, turning yellow (rarely red) in autumn. Flowers yellow-green in upright corymbs. Samara wings spread wider than 90 degrees. Sycamore differs: yellow-green buds, no whiskers, no milky sap. London Plane differs: alternate buds and leaves.

Cold-hardy but, unlike Sycamore, intolerant of exposure. It grows in strongly alkaline, heavy clay soils and is moderately drought-tolerant, with pollution tolerance and colourful autumn foliage making it good for urban planting. In forest it can regenerate so effectively that it risks becoming invasive where browsers are controlled, but is soon outcompeted by larger broadleaves, so is best grown in small groups. Popular cultivars include 'Goldsworth Purple', 'Schwedleri' and the silver-variegated 'Drummondii'.

Sometimes considered invasive. Flowers attract pollinating insects.

Vulnerable to bark-stripping by Grey Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). Also affected by various leaf spots, sooty bark disease, and vulnerable to verticillium wilt.

Its timber is not widely available but could become so, as this is potentially as productive a forest species in Britain and Ireland as it is in mainland Europe, producing pale, smooth, close-grained hardwood.