The Cappadocian Maple of Blarney

This maple comes from the mountains around Cappadocia in central Turkey and the Caucasus beyond it, a long way from the limestone and yew of the Blarney gardens it has spent a century in. The National Biodiversity Data Centre's 2009 heritage tree survey lists it among the estate's exceptional specimens, aged to somewhere between one and one and a half centuries, without recording who planted it or why. The species is a close relative of the Norway maple, and the giveaway is the same: snap a leaf stalk and the sap that beads up is milky white rather than clear. Its autumn colour is the real reason gardeners plant it far from home. Where a sugar maple goes red, Acer cappadocicum turns a pure, saturated gold, holding the colour for weeks longer than most maples before it drops. It shares the wider Blarney grounds with the Witch's Yew and the Great Western Red Cedar, both already well documented; this maple has had no such attention. The heritage tree register is the only source that has looked at it. If you know when it was planted, tell us.