Acer pictum - Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle, accession 1968. October 2005. See also: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ldplants/acpic.htm.
We needed some better pictures of fall colors for this spectacular tree. It is not called the "Painted Maple" for nothing. Mine is obviously a different form of the extremely polymorphic plant. Since I bought it from Esveld I checked their page. They list what I assume to be the form as als mono 'Acutissimum' a name I have not otherwise seen. My apologies for not rotating the pictures. The colors I assure you are true to life! -E
The history behind pictum "painted maple" actually came about from a cultivar with variegated leaves appearing painted. The name mono is a Japanese name. From North American Landscape Trees by Arthur Lee Jacobson; Ten Speed Press. Berkeley, CA. 1996 ISBN 0-89815-813-3 Distributed by Airlift Books in UK and Europe. Note:(A great book to own if you love to know the discovery, history, introduction and naming of a given species and cultivar)(@emery given your growing collection and interest in maples, I think you may enjoy the historical information as a reference if you don't already own it) "From NE Asia. This species was introduced to Western cultivation by Siebold to Holland in 1860. W.S. Bigelow sent seeds in 1891 from Japan to the Arnold Arboretum. The species and its varieties have remained very rare in N. America. The leaves color yellow in Fall. The yellow varies from dirty to brilliant, and can color early to late. Tree varies from slender and upright to mushroom-shaped. Bark taut, smooth, gray or beige. Leaf highly variable, but primary shallow five-lobed, 3"-6" wide, stem to 3 3/4" long containing milky sap. The leaf can be wholly hairless or quite hairy beneath. Seed wings vary from horizontal to parallel. Records: 82'x10'4" recorded in Japan; 82'x7'8" Hergest Croft, Herefordshire, England (1985); 63'x2'8" Seattle, WA (1994); 30'x4'11"x35' Tacoma, WA (1990). (height x trunk circumference x branch spread)
A. pictum is very variable, and is taxonomically an area of controversy. For many years the complex was called A. mono, but this was rejected -- wrongly according to some authors -- some years ago in favor of the older (but incorrectly applied) pictum. Here are flowers of one of mine. It flowers with the earliest group of maples, just after rubrum.
Great pictures! The book I refer to also makes mention of A. truncatum ssp. Mono and A. Mono. That's why I like it as it does not promote the author's opinion, it's all based on botanical records and fact, not opinion. (As I assert my opinion, kind of comical) Modern day taxonomy is a train wreck! I hope at some point DNA can push opinion aside once and for all. How can anyone talk about it with confidence as it's always changing. I guess it gives those author's something to talk about and more reason to print a new book.
Thanks! I know of the Jacobson by reputation, though I don't have it in my own library, sadly. Putting pictum under truncatum -- as Murray, the king of lumpers, tried to do -- has been definitively discarded; the species is just too complicated and variable. In MOW van Gelderen et al still use A. mono, and in Appendix 4 Dr. D.O. Wijnands argues convincingly for why mono should be retained. However this proposal was rejected by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy. The Maple Society currently has a taxonomy group (Crowley, de Jong, Camelbeke) trying to sort out at least the areas of wide agreement, so that we can focus further on the problem areas. Hoping to have this work quite soon. I couldn't agree more about the genetic approach, I think it will be amazing to get some actual data after all these years. Incredibly there's some resistance to anything but morphological taxonomy, but there is progress being made in Acer, much of which is confirming the general established groupings.
