Parrotia persica is a deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 in the family Hamamelidaceae

Hamamelidaceae

The Hamamelidaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Saxifragales, including 27 genera and about 80-90 species, all shrubs and small trees...

, the sole species in the genus Parrotia but closely related to the genus Hamamelis

Witch-hazel

Witch-hazel is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America , and one each in Japan and China...

(Witch-hazels). It is native to northern Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, where it is endemic

Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 in the Alborz

Alborz

Alborz , also written as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran stretching from the borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the northwest to the southern end of the Caspian Sea, and ending in the east at the borders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan...

 mountains.
It grows to 30 m tall and 8-15 m broad, with a trunk up to 150 cm diameter. The bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

 is smooth, pinkish-brown flaking/peeling to leave cinnamon, pink, green, and pale yellow patches in a similar manner to plane

Platanus

Platanus is a small genus of trees native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole living members of the family Platanaceae....

 trees. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are alternate, ovoid, often slightly lop-sided, 6-15 cm long and 4-10 cm across, with a wavy margin; they are glossy green, turning a rich purple to brilliant red in autumn colours.

The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are somewhat similar to Witch-hazel flowers but dark red; they are likewise produced in late winter on bare stems, but differ in having only four rounded sepals with no petals; the stamen

Stamen

The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

s are however fairly conspicuous, forming a dense red cluster 3-4 mm across. The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 is a two-parted capsule

Capsule (fruit)

In botany a capsule is a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. A capsule is a structure composed of two or more carpels that in most cases is dehiscent, i.e. at maturity, it splits apart to release the seeds within. A few capsules are indehiscent, for example...

 containing two seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, one in each half.

Cultivation

It is cultivated as an ornamental tree

Ornamental plant

Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...

 for its stunning autumn colour and the smooth, patterned bark. Several cultivars have been selected for garden planting:

• 'Horizontalis': semi-weeping, wide-spreading horizontal branching pattern.
• 'Pendula' (Kew Form): Compact, weeping, quite graceful
• 'Select': Young leaves have purple margins, otherwise same as species
• 'Vanessa': Upright, columnar habit