Acer palmatum ‘Butterfly’
‘Butterfly’ Japanese Maple is a very interesting tree. Small in stature with variegated leaves this tree is eye catching and intriguing. ‘Butterfly’ is a relatively small tree, but it is an upright variety.
The foliage is tight and compact. The tree produces a lot of small branches and is usually so dense you cannot get your hand into the head of the tree. One of the many highlights of this interesting plant is the many color of foliage, as well as the very green color of the bark.
The variegation is green and white, but the leaves are delicately outlined in pink. New growth often comes out pink and later takes on the natural variegation of the tree. Actually the new growth is a variegated pink as you’ll see in the photos in this article.
This is an interesting angle making this tree appear to be much larger than it is. This tree has been in our landscape for 6 years and is still only 36″ tall. Of course we prune it at least twice, if not three times a year. Pruning the Butterfly Japanese Maple keeps it tight and compact. Because the foliage is so attractive I like to keep the tree pruned so you can enjoy the beauty of the foliage. Left un-pruned it would probably be an unsightly mess.
In the spring the tree flushes out with a significant amount of new growth. By early July the tree looks as if it needs pruning and that’s when we prune it the first time, cutting back most of the new growth. That way each year the tree grows fuller and not just taller. Throughout the rest of the growing season it’s not unusual for the tree to send out a new random branch here or there and those random branches really look out of place. So during the growing season and then again at the end of the growing season we (my wife or I, usually my wife) clip off those random branches so the tree is nice and uniform going into the dormancy period.
If you allow those random branches to remain on the tree, come spring you’ll get a flush of new growth on the random branches as well as the rest of the tree and soon the tree will become very unattractive. Proper pruning of all Japanese Maples is necessary, especially ‘Butterfly’.
In this photo you can see the very interesting color of the branches as well as the density of the tree. You can also see that even though this is a relatively small tree, it has a really heavy duty trunk, giving it even more of a dwarf appearance.
New growth, green leaf trimmed in pink. Notice the smaller leaf is almost all pink. Another trait of “Butterfly Japanese Maple is varied leaf sizes and shapes. The leaves are all different sizes and vary in shape.
Mature leaves are green and white varigated. The amount of varigation on any given leaf or set of leaves will differ. In this photo some of the leaves are more white than green. The light colored straight object in the photo is actually a bamboo stake.
This photo and the photo shown above were both taken on the same day. These are of different plants, but both are Butterfly Japanese Maple. This particular plant had an unseasonal amount of new growth since they photos were both taken in mid August. But as you can see this wonderful little tree has many faces and the foliage changes throughout the growing season.