Acer hyrcanumFisch. & C.A.Mey.

Balkan maple

WFO wfo-0000514347 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Acer hyrcanum, photographed by Sokratis
fig. a Sokratis, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-06-20 / obs. 139498441
Acer hyrcanum, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. b Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48075519
Acer hyrcanum, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. c Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48075530
Acer hyrcanum, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. d Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48075547

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 9 botanical countries

Regions where Acer hyrcanum is native: Iran, Lebanon-Syria, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen. IranLebanon-SyriaTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaGreeceKrymNW. Balkan Pen.
Native distribution of Acer hyrcanum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Bulgaria BUL
Greece GRC
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 45 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -10.5 °C -5.2 °C -1.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.6 °C 23.8 °C 27.5 °C
Annual rainfall 462 mm 837 mm 1,362 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 12 mm 94 mm 198 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 45 research-grade observations of Acer hyrcanum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 47 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acer amaliae Orph. ex Boiss.
  • Acer hyrcanum f. tomentellum (Pax) Simonk.
  • Acer hyrcanum f. vitosensis Palam.
  • Acer hyrcanum var. cordisectum (Borbás) Bornm.
  • Acer hyrcanum var. intermedium (Pancic Pancic Pancic Pancic Pancic) Pančić
  • Acer hyrcanum var. paradoxum Bornm. & Sint.
  • Acer hyrcanum var. reygassei (Boiss. & Blanche) Boiss.
  • Acer intermedium Pancic
  • Acer intermedium f. cernjavskii Jovan.
  • Acer intermedium f. fukarekii Jovan.
  • Acer intermedium f. latialatum Jovan.
  • Acer intermedium f. optentum Jovan.
  • Acer intermedium var. cordisectum Borbás
  • Acer intermedium var. minutum Jovan.
  • Acer italum f. cordisectum (Borbás) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. intermedium (Pančić) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. keckianum (Asch. & Sint. ex Pax) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. reygassei (Boiss. & Blanche) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. serbicum (Pax) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. tauricolum (Boiss. & Balansa) Schwer.
  • Acer italum f. tomentellum (Pax) Schwer.
  • Acer italum subsp. hyrcanum (Fisch. & C.A.Mey.) Pax
  • Acer italum var. acutilobum Schwer.
  • Acer italum var. hyrcanum (Fisch. & C.A.Mey.) Pax

and 23 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.