A deciduous tree from 12 to 30 ft high; young shoots glabrous. Leaves 3 to 6 in. long and wide, five-lobed, slightly heart-shaped or truncate at the base, rather glaucous beneath; lobes ovate, with long drawn-out points, irregularly and sparsely toothed. Occasionally the leaves are quite glabrous at maturity, but often they have tufts of yellowish hairs in the axils of the veins. Flowers numerous, in panicles 2 to 4 in. long, greenish white. Fruits glabrous, in pendulous panicles; keys 11⁄4 in. long; wings 2⁄5 in. wide, the pair forming an angle of about 120°.
var. concolor Pax – This differs in the wings of the fruit spreading horizontally, and in the leaf being somewhat larger and green beneath.
Native of Central China, and at one time represented in the Coombe Wood nursery by plants of the variety concolor, raised from seed introduced in 1901, by Wilson. The leaves are handsome, being of a reddish shade when young, afterwards turning a dark lustrous green. The true species is rare in cultivation and no longer grown at Kew.