Species
+

Acer japonicum Thunb.

Amur maple, Amur maple, Downy Japanese-Maple, Japanese maple

Climate known 34 photographs Temperate garden plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Acer japonicum, fullmoon maple, or downy Japanese-maple, is a species of maple native to Japan, on Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū, and also southern Korea.

Text from Wikipedia, “Acer japonicum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

Family
Sapindaceae
Described by
Thunb.
Native to
Kuril Is., Japan
Wild records
861 in range· 812 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Aug, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2123mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 269 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Acer, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to November in the northern hemisphere (May to November at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 2123 mm a year, wettest September at 269 mm, driest February at 109 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -12.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Acer circumlobatum Maxim.; Acer circumlobatum f. insulare (Pax) Schwer.; Acer circumlobatum var. heyhachii (Matsum.) Makino; Acer circumlobatum var. insulare Pax; Acer heyhachii Matsum. and 19 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Acer, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to November in the northern hemisphere (May to November at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1488 mm of 2123 mm) falls in May to November, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 15.2 °C against a yearly mean of 9.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to May.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 2123 mm a year, wettest September at 269 mm, driest February at 109 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2123 mm a year at the habitat, 1488 mm of it May to November. Wettest month September at 269 mm, driest February at 109 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1443 mm to 3230 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -12.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -12.6 °C, the absolute minimum -17.6 °C, about 148 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -8.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -13.5 °C to -3.1 °C), warmest day 24.8 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -12.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 68% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from -1 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Aug; mean night from -8 °C in Jan to 18 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2123 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 700 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -17.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-17.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 13–34RH 60–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 700 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-1 / -5–30 / -5–44 / -1–811 / 6–1416 / 12–1920 / 16–2323 / 20–2625 / 21–2821 / 17–2415 / 11–188 / 4–122 / -2–7
Night °C-8 / -14–-3-8 / -13–-3-4 / -8–-01 / -2–57 / 4–1112 / 9–1517 / 13–2018 / 14–2114 / 10–177 / 4–111 / -3–5-5 / -10–-0
Rain mm123 / 52–307109 / 54–217138 / 82–218138 / 90–205165 / 114–243203 / 126–306265 / 177–400244 / 165–348269 / 192–356193 / 133–263149 / 75–287127 / 46–307
DLI15 / 13–1921 / 19–2428 / 26–3033 / 32–3534 / 32–3632 / 29–3530 / 27–3230 / 27–3324 / 22–2620 / 18–2215 / 13–1813 / 10–17
RH %63 / 57–6962 / 57–6761 / 57–6460 / 57–6161 / 59–6365 / 63–6868 / 65–7167 / 64–7066 / 63–6963 / 60–6663 / 59–6663 / 57–68

Each figure is the median across the 700 grid cells holding the 841 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1064:6384 (36.775, 139.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -17.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -12.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 700 distinct grid cells holding the 841 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1064:6384 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 37.00_139.375, lapse-corrected +16 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 941 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeKuril Is., Japan
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker36.568, 138.632 · in the densest population, 642 records (75% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 861 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 812 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 94 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 20 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 861 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Acer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicumAcer japonicum

Photographs: (c) pavlaki1968, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Jerome Ko, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Acer japonicum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Compendium of Corn Diseases
John A. Juvik (2000) · HortTechnology
Contributions to morphometrics
Leslie F. Marcus, Elisa. Bello, Antonio García-Valdecasas (1993)
Frost resistance in alpine woody plants
Gilbert Neuner (2014) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Natural disturbance and tree species coexistence in an old‐growth beech ‐ dwarf bamboo forest, southwestern Japan
Shinichi Yamamoto, Naoyuki Nishimura, Kiyoshi Matsui (1995) · Journal of Vegetation Science
THE EVOLUTION OF DIOECY, HETERODICHOGAMY, AND LABILE SEX EXPRESSION IN ACER
Susanne S. Renner, Ludwig Beenken, Guido W. Grimm, Alexander Kocyan (2007) · Evolution
Functional relationship between chlorophyll content and leaf reflectance, and light‐capturing efficiency of Japanese forest species
Thomas T. Lei, Ryuichi Tabuchi, Mitsutoshi Kitao, Takayoshi Koike (1996) · Physiologia Plantarum
The effects of Sasa and canopy gap formation on tree regeneration in an old beech forest
M. Abe, J. Izaki, Hideo Miguchi, Takashi Masaki (2002) · Journal of Vegetation Science
Tree leaf and root traits mediate soil faunal contribution to litter decomposition across an elevational gradient
Saori Fujii, Johannes H. C. Cornelissen, Matty P. Berg, Akira Mori (2017) · Functional Ecology
Leaf anatomy and light acclimation in woody seedlings after gap formation in a cool-temperate deciduous forest
Riichi Oguchi, Kouki Hikosaka, Tsutom Hiura, Tadaki Hirose (2006) · Oecologia
Implementation of Wireless Sensor Networks for Irrigation Control in Three Container Nurseries
Matthew Chappell, Sue K. Dove, Marc W. van Iersel, Paul Thomas (2013) · HortTechnology

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Acer 18 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 106 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.