Acer pensylvanicum - UWBG Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle, accession 1944. First photograph taken May 2006; last three taken October 2005.
I am hoping that I can find a better specimen to take a picture of. I would also like to see the locals take them out of the forest and plant them in their yard. Maybe the newspaper will generate some interest. Thanks Alex, to bad it will not grow well in Roma, is surely a cool climate tree. I am now free to roam the world over, I did find the best Maple syrup in the world while I was up there. It is made by a family I met, their last name is Northrop in Spartanburg PA, they do have a little store there.
Kaspian - yes, yours is also Acer pensylvanicum. Can admin transfer this thread from the Acer palmatum cultivars gallery to the maple photo gallery (and decapitalise the P, too!), please?
Here is some in-depth information on Acer pensylvanicum: Acer pensylvanicum L A few highlights or sampling of the information provided in the link above: "Seedling Development- Newly collected striped maple seeds are dormant and must receive moist stratification at 5° C (41°F) for 0 to 120 days to germinate (40). Mature seeds covered only by the current year's leaf litter do not germinate until the second year but, if buried under soil or humus, germinate the first year. There also seems to be a testaimposed dormancy in the species which causes mechanical restriction of radicle elongation. Seeds would not germinate after stratification of 30 to 90 days with the testae intact, but when testae were removed from over the radicles, germination was rapid and complete. Unstratified seeds with the testae removed from over the radicles and treated with benzyladenine germinated 100 percent at 23° C (74° F) (49). Delay in germination of striped maple seed was reduced when two-thirds of the basal area of the stand was removed and was completely eliminated when the stand was clearcut (29). In the clearcut, however, total germination dropped sharply with the complete removal of the overstory. Seed germination is epigeal, with the radicle first to emerge. Soon after the emergence and elongation of the radicle, the shoot begins its upward growth. The cotyledons unfold and are followed by the formation of the first pair of leaves. The leaf margins are serrate and lobes are usually absent. The leaf area is small, ranging from about 25 to 65 mm (1 to 2.5 in) (5). Suppressed new seedlings generally grow less than 30 mm (1.2 in) per year and mortality is nearly 90 percent after the first growing season. In the following 15 years, the mortality rate drops to less than 1 percent per year. Between 15 and 40 years of age, mortality rises to 3.8 percent per year but drops to 1.6 percent after 40 years" "Sapling and Pole Stages to Maturity Growth and Yield-Striped maple develops best under moderate light intensity. Rapid shoot growth under low light intensity can occur but the growth resembles etiolation (48). Under direct sunlight striped maple may be succeeded by mountain maple (19). The species is well adapted to survival under heavy shade. As a suppressed understory tree, its growth and development are extremely slow. Height growth over a 10-year period may be as little as 30 cm (12 in), but trees that have been heavily suppressed for 35 to 40 years respond well to release(13,14). Growth rate of trees following the removal of the overstory is correlated with growth rate before over-story removal, whether or not they were previously growing in a suppressed or released state. The maximum rate of growth observed among released striped maple under optimum light was 1 m (3.3 ft) per year. The species grows well in small forest openings and under a thinned overstory that results in moderate understory lighting. Because its maximum height growth is about 15 m (49 ft), it will never become a major member in the upper canopy of the northern hardwood forest cover type, though the species has been known to occupy forest openings for more than 100 years" "Damaging Agent- Probably the most serious enemy of striped maple is Verticillium wilt (Verticillium albo-atrum), a soil-borne stem disease that kills the trees it attacks (12). Less destructive to the species is Cristulariella depraedens, one of the common leaf spot diseases found on a number of other maple species (36). Although Pezicula trunk and branch cankers are found on several maple species, Pezicula subcarnea attacks striped maple only (9). P acericola occasionally appears on striped maple but is most common on mountain maple. The species is relatively free of insect attack. However, it is subject to infestation by one of the flatheaded borers, Agrilus politus, which forms stem galls"
the use of cytokinins to overcome seed dormancy is interesting. i always thought gibberellins were the only way
