Cappadocian Maple

Snap a leaf stalk on any of the three mapped here and the sap that beads up is milky white rather than clear, the same trick its close relative the Norway maple plays. What gardeners actually plant it for is the autumn show: rather than the mixed reds and oranges of most maples, this one turns a uniform, saturated gold and holds the colour for weeks. Cork's grows in the gardens at Blarney Castle, dated to somewhere between one and one and a half centuries old by a 2009 heritage survey that never recorded who planted it. Utrecht's stands at the west entrance to Wilhelminapark, one of the park's original 1880s plantings according to the Dutch national monumental tree register. Lyon's, in the Tête d'Or's arboretum since the garden was founded in 1857, has been measured at 3.20 metres round and 26 metres tall, mature rather than record-breaking. None of the three carries a confirmed planting date, which for a tree grown as a specimen rather than a landmark is the ordinary state of things.