Scientific Name
Acer tataricum ‘GarAnn’
It's rare to encounter a tree whose origin is right in our Colorado backyard, but this is one of them. Some years ago, Fort Collins Wholesale Nursery, a major Mountain States commercial grower of trees and other plants, had a field row of Tatarian maples being cultivated for commercial sale. At some point, the nursery staff realized that one of these trees, after it reached flowering age, developed seeds — the classic double-winged "helicopters” botanists call samaras — with an extraordinarily bright red color that persisted on the tree for a long time. Since the species in general was already well-suited to our region — being drought-, heat- and cold-tolerant, with a small stature ideal for planting on urban properties — it was obvious that this superior plant should be propagated and would be a success in the retail nursery market. So now we have available one of the most popular small ornamental trees on the market, thanks to horticultural lightning striking one day in Fort Collins.
As a cultivar, all the 'Hot Wings' trees are genetically identical and will almost always have the brilliant red samaras, though this doesn't mean that every tree will grow up to look identical. Environmental conditions, pruning decisions and other factors will result in trees having single or multiple trunks; some will have asymmetrical canopies because they were planted too close to buildings or other trees; and some will grow faster because of better soil or adequate irrigation. Even so, all share the basic qualities of the Tatarian maple parents, which include glossy dark green foliage that normally turns an attractive red in the fall, as well as drought tolerance. This is one of the earliest trees to leaf out in the spring and can sometimes be caught by late freezes, but at least its foliage is able to withstand temperatures into the mid-20s. It will eventually attain a height of about 20 feet and a width a bit more than half that.
The Tatarian maple is native to central and southeastern Europe, as well as adjacent Turkey, and is named for the Tatar peoples of southern Russia. The somewhat similar ginnala maple (Acer ginnala) is also found on the Regis campus and is profiled separately on this website. Some botanists consider the two trees as the same species, one being a variety of the other, even though there are distinct differences in leaf shape and the species’ native ranges are separated by more than 2,000 miles.