What sort of maple is this?

Discussion in 'Maples' started by fiddick, Jun 16, 2021.

  1. fiddick

    fiddick Active Member

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    Hi All,

    I bought an unlabeled maple. It was amongst a lot of Japanese maples and the nursery was supposed to have Acer pseudosieboldianum takesimense in stock and that's what I was hoping it was because I garden in zone 5, so A. p. takesimense would likely be reliably hardy. However, when I got it home and compared it to online images of A. p. takesimense, it didn't seem to be a good match. Then again, that maple seems to be highly variable. I've posted a few pictures of it. The black circular thing I'm holding in one photo is the lens cap for my camera, which is about 1.5 inches in diameter. Some photos were taken today, others were taken earlier in the spring. I thought it might be a red maple at first, but now that my red maples are out, it seems different and it was blooming whereas other red maples that I have that are larger haven't started to bloom yet, so I don't quite think it is a red maple. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
     

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  2. AlainK

    AlainK Renowned Contributor Forums Moderator Maple Society 10 Years

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    To me, it looks like A. p. var. takesimense. Of course, in different environments, etc, they can look a bit different. Here are two photos of one of mine :

    acer-pseudosieb-tak_210620a.jpg acer-pseudosieb-tak_210620b.jpg
     
  3. fiddick

    fiddick Active Member

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    Do the leaves on yours look similar when they first emerge? I have the regular species and was trying to compare them. They both seemed to leaf out at the same time, but if I recall correctly -- and I definitely could be mistaken -- they looked different. I think the leaves on the regular species were a lighter green. However, the growth patterns seem very similar. I have 4 specimens of the regular species and they seem to be really fussy. One barely grows at all. Another put on a lot of growth then died back, A third is slowly making progress and the 4th is doing quite well. It sort of reminds me of this tree. It seems healthy, but doesn't seem to add any new growth.
     
  4. maf

    maf Generous Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    It does not look to have enough leaf lobes for Acer takesimense imo. The colour of the young leaves in one of your pictures reminds me of the chocolate maple, Acer pubinerve, but I am not familiar enough with that species to make a definite suggestion.
     
  5. emery

    emery Renowned Contributor Maple Society 10 Years

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    The leaves are way too indented for pubinerve, and actually I don't think dark enough either. Not takesimense either, they seem to be only 5 (to 7) lobed. When there are some more mature leaves it might be easier. Or a flower morphology expert might recognize something off the bat... BTW takesimense has been raised in rank from subspecies, it is now just plain old Acer takesimense.
     
  6. fiddick

    fiddick Active Member

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    Thanks all for the suggestions. It's looking like this is a bit of a mystery still. I did contact the owner of the nursery where I bought the tree from and his guess was a variety of A. japonicum or A. sieboldianum. Maybe the thing is to just let it grow a little more -- though it does seem rather slow growing.
     

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