Wooden Japanese Maple Tree – Large Four-Piece Hand-Painted Toy

About the Japanese Maple

The Japanese maple, Acer palmatum, grows wild in Japan, Korea and China. Its Latin name means "shaped like a hand": each leaf spreads into five, seven or nine pointed lobes, like open fingers. Gardeners in Japan have grown it for centuries, and today there are thousands of named varieties.

In autumn the leaves turn red, orange and gold, and in Japan people travel to temples, parks and mountains to admire them – a tradition called momijigari, "hunting for red leaves".

• Crown (two sections)
• Trunk
• Base

Also available as a Small Japanese Maple Tree in four colors or as a set of four. Build a forest with the Large Oak Tree and Large Birch Tree.

Assembled tree – Height × Width × Depth: 21.0 × 26.0 × 3.6 cm (8.3 × 10.2 × 1.4 in)

All pieces are shaped from solid ash wood and hand-sanded to a smooth finish with no sharp edges. The crown and base are hand-painted with water-based paints, the trunk keeps the natural grain of the ash, and every piece is finished with olive oil, which protects the wood against moisture. No plastics, no solvent-based finishes, no MDF, no veneers. Made in conformity with the European toy safety standard EN 71. Small variations in colour and grain are a natural part of handmade production, not defects.

A tree children build before they play with it.

Fitting four pieces together – base, trunk, two halves of the crown – asks for patience, careful hands and a sense of how parts make a whole. Once standing, the maple becomes the centre of the scene: animals rest under it, figures meet beside it, and stories begin to have a place.

Inspired by Montessori and Waldorf principles, the Japanese maple also belongs on the seasonal nature table. Its autumn colours open conversations about why leaves change, how trees rest in winter and how the same tree looks different through the year. There are no batteries, sounds or buttons – the child leads the play.

Solid ash is dense and hard-wearing, and every piece is sanded and painted by hand in our workshop in Romania. Tree by tree, the forest grows with the child and lasts long enough to be passed on.