Plant: Koto No Ito - Japanese Maple
Japanese Maple · Acer palmatum 'Koto no ito'
Size: 15 gal
Light
Bloom
Mature size
More about this plant
Koto no ito is a slow growing, upright green Japanese maple with a vase or V shaped habit, reaching roughly 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide in ten years and about 14 to 18 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide over time. Its leaves are composed of five to seven narrow, strap like lobes, some hardly wider than a leaf vein, making it one of the most threadleaf of the threadleaf maples and giving it an elegant, soft look. Foliage emerges crimson then quickly turns bright green, holds medium green through summer and moves from gold through orange to scarlet in fall. It takes full sun to partial shade, is hardy to zone 5 once established, and reads as a fine textured accent or specimen.
- Part Shade
- Grows to 18 ft tall and 15 ft wide
- Blooms in spring
- Hardy in USDA zones 5-8
- Deciduous foliage
Plant description
Koto no ito is a slow growing, upright green Japanese maple with a vase or V shaped habit, reaching roughly 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide in ten years and about 14 to 18 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide over time. Its leaves are composed of five to seven narrow, strap like lobes, some hardly wider than a leaf vein, making it one of the most threadleaf of the threadleaf maples and giving it an elegant, soft look. Foliage emerges crimson then quickly turns bright green, holds medium green through summer and moves from gold through orange to scarlet in fall. It takes full sun to partial shade, is hardy to zone 5 once established, and reads as a fine textured accent or specimen.
- Flowers
- Small red to purple flowers appear in spring; attractive viewed closely but insignificant from a distance.
- Foliage
- Leaves of five to seven narrow, strap like lobes that vary from narrow to hardly more than a leaf vein, emerging crimson then turning bright green, and colouring gold to orange to scarlet in fall.
- Fruit
- A schizocarp of two samaras with incurved wings forming an arch, becoming reddish in fall.
- Bark & stems
- Young stems vary from green to polished reddish brown; older branches assume a gray cast.
- Light
- Morning Sun, Dappled/Filtered Light
- Native range
- Japan, China, Korea, eastern Mongolia and southeastern Russia





















