Acer palmatum 'Beni Komachi'

Matt's theory of the edge variegation makes the most sense to me of any explanation I have heard for reversions in 'Beni komachi'. I had never really thought of it in terms of the shaped leaves being caused by a variegation before - will have to get my magnifying glass out and have a closer look this year!

 

Has anyone ever heard/seen of a reversion un-reverting? I'm going to guess probably not. When looking at my BK today I noticed that, in addition to the tree being on two time schedules, that even the branches look different. It's not pretty, but I'll go ahead and upload two demonstrating photos for reference.

 

Well, yes, I know what you're talking about. I used to worry about my Beni Komachi and my Higasa Yama "going native" with weird long branches produced by them and showing entirely different leaf forms. After consulting with nurserymen, they told me to chop off the strange new growth. I did this religiously until one year when we had too many medical issues in this household and I was unable to chop off the new "native" growth. So I was much amazed the next spring when the growth I had planned to lop off looked entirely normal once again. I'm not sure what is going on here, but I think we might be overreacting to abnormal growth. Maybe it reverts constantly.
mapledia

 

I have found Beni Komachi to be one of the worst trees for reversions. I bought one mature tree in winter and was suprised in spring to have a tree divided in two that grew the two difffent leaves. I chopped off the incorrect growth. Last year I started working at our local auboretum where they had 5 very large Beni Komache, one is 12' tall and 12' wide. Because of the amount of duplication of trees, I traded them out of the beni komachi and replaced with different cultivars and took them home. A couple of the trees had some very large branches which had reversions. On one tree which had reverted I cut the twiggy branches off and left the main branch, the current new growth on the branch is still the reversion. Other branches were removed and i will be interested to see if new growth starts near the trunk (which I have found common).
I found on the mature tree that if the reversion is left alone it will outgrow the correct growth and so to speak destroy the Beni Komachi.

 

here is a photo of a Beni Komachi which was apart of the Evergreen Arboretum in Everett, WA. It was replaced since it was one of five Beni Komachi there. The one remaining dwarfs this tree.

 

When the Beni komachi plants from Japan were
grafted is when we started seeing this Maple have
some reversion. The old plants on their own roots
did not revert much at all or seldom ever returned
to wild type. As a matter of fact it was due to this
Maple is what prompted my first trip up to see Mr.
Vertrees' Beni komachi. I knew from the cutting
grown plants we had from Mr. Koto Matsubara and
the grafted plants that were already in the nursery
prior to my coming onto the scene that a major
event had to take place with this Maple relatively
soon after this Maple had been grafted. We saw
some unruly, vigorous growth in some of the grafted
plants but they still kept their coloring and never did
yield a palmate shaped leaf. In many nurseries in
Oregon I almost always saw some palmate shaped
leaves in the second flush of new growth after the
Spring leaf out. What I wanted to know was if Mr.
Vertrees' Maple had been grafted and if so, which
seedling rootstock was used for his tree.

Some of us that propagated and later grew this
Maple learned the hard way that non-select green
seedling amoenum really messed this plant up
by making what was a quite stable plant on its
own roots and offspring from germinated seedlings
as well to becoming an unstable plant by way of
grafting onto non select green seedlings. Sure,
a lot depended on which green seedlings impacted
the overly vigorous and unusual shaped growth but
to see this Maple revert like it could and even return
to green or red wild type took some real thought as
to what may have caused this to happen. Much
more so it seemed with any old green amoenum
rather than red seedling amoneum used as a
rootstock.

Much of the rootstocks used in California for
many years were seedling palmatum, some
seedling matsumurae used also, depending
on the nursery but one thing that many of the
Oregon nurseries that had this Maple had in
common was the use of green seedling amoenum
and it was in these grafted progeny that we saw
the most diversity in their Beni komachi.

Technically, there are two forms of Beni komachi
in Japan. One form does yield some variegated
leaves in the old growth [Spring growth a glowing
crimson red when it first leafs out and stays this
color through leaf expansion that ends up being
green with some pink overtone (in this case a
variegated color), in the leaf edges] and a second
form in which the new crimson red new growth
can have some pink in the edge color and later
in the Spring for us, by Summer in some other
locations, fade out to an all red leaf. The cutting
grown plants of both forms generally did not go all
green in leaf by Summer but retained much of
the red coloration almost year round. In the
two old Japanese forms we have a nigrum group
red and a nomura group red. The grafted forms
of this Maple that do have old growth that are
green in leaf color by Summer and in late
Summer in some areas are the atropurpureum
form. In this instance a reduced form of
red to go from a nigrum group red to being
an atropurpureum. Even the nomura group
red can become an atropurpureum group
red by way of non select grafting as well.

Red seedling matsumurae has not overly
affected the leaf shape of this Maple but
to go back in now and take a grafted plant
and use scionwood and graft onto a red
seedling may not pan out for us now, may
be too late to try but if we can go back in
and take wood from a rooted cutting grown
adult plant and then graft wood from it onto
a red palmatum or red matsumurae seedling
then we can start over and probably not
see the reverting and return to wild type
progeny plants. Mr. Vertrees' Maple was
grafted onto palmatum which some of us
concluded was why his Maple stayed
pretty much true for that form. Growers
that got descendant, whole plants from
this Maple, did have success with their
stock plants but when budwood was
taken from this Maple and grafted onto
green seedling amoenum then those
growers saw lots of unusual growth in
their liner plants in their greenhouses.

Size of this Maple is almost immaterial
in choosing one plant over another to
keep in an arboretum. What is far
more important is which Maple stays
uniform in leaf sizes and leaf shapes
and which one doesn't. The uniform
Maple always takes precedence, or
at least it should to those of us that
have been around this Maple and
have seen the two old forms of Japan,
one source plant from the island of
Honshu and the other from the Kansai
region of Japan.

Jim

 

Pictures of my new Beni komachi - tiny, spindly little thing as you can see. The first picture is what the leaves look like currently, the second is how they looked shortly after emerging. Obviously, the leaves as they are now don't look a thing like the pictures I've seen of Beni komachi; I'm assuming this is due to it being juvenile growth and will 'right' itself next year? Though, after reading other posts, I'm not so sure...

 

Beni Komachi is somewhat a weak tree and tends to easily revert back to a shin deshojo type tree. The leaves of a beni komachi are more curled and have a more varigated coloring. Maybe as babies the tree look different but that one does not come close to what I have seen as a beni komachi. look at post #2 and you will see a nice example of the leaves.

 

Well I hope it settles down for you though I must admit I've just grafted a couple of Komachis and none of the leaves look like yours,they came out spindly and tatty looking as I think they should which surprised me for a new graft....I wish you luck :)

 

:( Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens then. Maybe I should've ponied up the dough for a larger/older tree instead that displayed the proper leaf-type...

 

I bought a 'Beni Komachi' last year.

When repotting it tonight, I had two for the price of one ;-)

 

AHA! this may answer a question that I've tried to investigate before.I presume it's on it's own roots yes? Had and seen many like this with two or more trunks exiting the soil and suspected they were multiple plants.However I've never been able to dig down deep enough to confirm this.
I had one of these also clonal,it was surprisingly vigorous.I was quite proud of it as it was getting to be a reasonable size but made the mistake of heavily pruning it in autumn.I got infections at every cut,the stems looked like a zebra and it bit the dust.
Nice bargain you've got there Alain :)

 

Hello everyone, I am new to gardening, so be gentle. I love Acers, and when my aunt grew a 6ft vibrant red Acer in her garden, I knew one day I'd have one for myself. I got a weedy little bedraggled Palmation Phoenix for £5 in a local garden centre. It's been a year and it's still alive and has grown some (even though I pruned it for a better shape). On another visit to a garden centre, I saw a devine red Ben Komachi (in a sale). For me the big red leaves blew me away, but now I have discovered from reading that the leaves should be small, irregular and delicate, which is still good. But what should I do? I have about 4 branches (2 big, 1 medium and another titchy) that are producing these huge leaves, should I prune them back? I have attached two pics, you can also see my Phoenix in one pic.

 

Hi Connie,I used to see these large leaves occasionally on mine(haven't got it now)but I can't remember if the 'reversion' was permanent,I don't think it was but maybe someone who currently grows it might know.If you don't like the position of these branches you could remove them anyway,otherwise leave them be and see how they turn out next year :)

 

Hi Houzi, the plant is new and I found out that the garden centres can over fertilise the plants, that can lead to this excelerated growth. Thanks!

 

I was browsing through my photos and noticed that I have this "forest" of 'Beni Komachi' that I bought from a friend. He told me it was actually a single tree with almost all the branches on the same side so he decided to make it a "raft" (several trunks from the same root, as if a fallen tree had grown several trunks) or a forest. Since it was quite young, he managed to bend the trunk enough to make a forest. It's the only tree I've named. Here is "Forêt de Francis" in April 2020 :



Some of the leaves have full lobes, but that's not a problem, really :

 

An amazing forest Alain, now if anybody seeing your photos has thought to themselves what do I do with all those seedlings I have, your forest surely will give them some ideas.

 

It isn't "mine". It's a bonsaï that I wanted to keep healthy after my friend had to sell all of his bonsai because of health problems.

It's not "my forest", it's Francis's forest, and I hope it will survive him - he's still with us, but declining I'm afraid. But as long as I can keep it alive, it will be his forest, and I hope someone will keep it long after I'm gone.

 

Lovely thing your doing there Alain.

 

The 'Beni komachi' bonsai. The photo looks like an abstract painting :

 

Or a Claude Monet. Whichever, I like it a lot.

 

My containerised 'Beni komachi' which is old but not large has had some reversions in recent years. The worst part of the problem is that the reversions tend to leaf out around two weeks before the non-reverted foliage in the spring, and, coupled with the fact they are stronger growing, it is all too easy to take your eye off the ball and find yourself with quite a large reverted branch. I am in the second year of a two year plan to rid my little girl of all reversions. Year one, all reverted growing tips were pinched out in spring, but leaves that had already formed were allowed to remain to fuel growth on the rest of the tree. Then in autumn the main reverted branch was cut off, leaving only a few minor reverted twigs. Year two, the same shoot pinching process in the spring and in September I will cut out the few remaining twigs with the Shindeshojo-like leaves.

Strong top growth in the second flush this year, and all showing the proper leaf shape! Also included a shot of the reverted lower foliage that had the growing tips pinched out in spring; no summer growth on this section which is a result!

Pictures:

 

What an excellent posting on patience M. Something that can be lacking in my own garden.