Cultivar origin

Japan; original selection locality undocumented.

'Aureum', the golden full moon maple, has a documented history reaching back to nineteenth-century European cultivation. Oregon State University reports its introduction from Japan into Holland around 1865 and into England by 1881. Trees and Shrubs Online credits Messrs Veitch with introducing it to Britain before 1881, distinguishing that introduction from its undocumented original selection. The same account describes an old specimen at Esveld nursery in Boskoop dating from the 1860s, while noting uncertainty over whether it represents the same clone as Veitch's introduction. Previously cultivated as Acer japonicum 'Aureum', it was subsequently assigned to Acer shirasawanum. Its original selector, selection date and parentage remain undocumented in the sources reviewed. These historical introduction dates should therefore not be presented as its breeding or selection year.