A shrub or small tree. Leaves opposite each other, with 3 to 5 lobes having a few sublobes, but no teeth, green on both sides, turning yellow in autumn. Leaves are small for a maple. Flowers are small and yellow-green; blooms in late April - early May.  Furits are paired samaras (bottom, center), that is, a pair of wings, each containing a seed, that fly like a helicopter to carry the seeds away from the mother plant..  The two samaras form a nearly straight line.

A European shrub, sometimes cultivated and rarely escaping into the wild. In Wildwood it persists or has escaped along the bikeway spur from the tunnel to Main Street.

The leaves are classical maple-like leaves. All other maples in the Park, however, are substantial trees with either toothed leaves or compound leaves.  Additionally, in most maples the samaras are curved or angled downward, not on a line as in hedge maple.