Modeling 3D plants

Wednesday 15 January 2020

Most types of maple are trees 10–40 m tall, but among them there are shrubs 5–10 m tall with a number of small branches growing from the base of the trunk.

Mostly deciduous plants, and only a few species from South Asia and the Mediterranean are evergreens.

The leaves are opposite; in most species, they are lanceate (palmate), with three to nine veins on each lobe, one of which runs in the middle. Only a few species have complex palmate leaves, complex pinnate leaves, with cirrus venation or without lobes.

Several species, such as Gray Maple (Acer griseum), Three-flowered Maple (Acer triflorum), Manchurian Maple (Acer mandshuricum) and Maksimovich Maple (Acer maximowiczianum) have three-leafed leaves (shamrocks). The maple ash (Acer negundo) leaves are complex-pinnate and can consist of three, five, seven and rarely nine leaves. In the maple horned (Acer carpinifolium) leaves are simple and with cirrus venation, resemble hornbeam.

Holly maple flower with nectar ring

Flowers with five symmetrically arranged petals, collected in a brush, flap or umbrella. They have five sepals, five petals from 1 to 6 mm long, twelve stamens 6-10 mm and two pistils of different types. The ovary is located higher and has two carpels, whose wings are pulled out of a flower - by this sign it is easy to determine which flower is female. Maples bloom in late winter or early spring, in most species immediately after the appearance of leaves, and in some even before. The flowers are green, yellow, orange or red, and although each of them is very small, with the flowering of some species, a person from afar has the feeling of a fully blooming tree.

The nectar is a flat ring and is located between the petals and stamens [6]: 35, at the acutifolia maple it extends to the ovary, and the base of the stamens are immersed in it [7]: 358.

The fruit, called the winged wing, consists of two identical parts and rotates when it falls, taking the seed to a considerable distance. The fruit ripens in the interval from two to six weeks after flowering.