I am trying to obtain information about A. macrophyllum 'rubrum'. I have a specimen of A. macrophyllum that demonstrates characteristics different from the species but similar to what I have read about A. macrophyllum 'rubrum'. In particular the foliage of my specimen emerges deep red for about 3-4 weeks and then fades into the green color typical of the species. In Maples of the World by Van Gelderen, Jong and Oterdoom describe the cultivar 'rubrum' as "reddish bronze when young" A. macrophyllum 'rubrum' resides at Blake Gardens Berkeley , CA. Attached is a photo of my specimen. Any info on A. macrophyllum 'rubrum' would be appreciated. robert
A botanical forma, rather than a cultivar, named after the plant in the Blake garden. Seen growing wild elsewhere in the Bay area, as well as around Puget Sound. The bigleaf maple version of Acer platanoides f. schwedleri.
Hi Robert: Tell you what, why not post some photos of this Maple in 2 week or one month intervals and go ahead and make the photos larger in size if you want to. Did you buy this Maple in California and do you know the sourcing of it? In Maples of the World by Van Gelderen, Jong and Oterdoom describe the cultivar 'rubrum' as "reddish bronze when young". You are assuming they are growing the same form as you and I doubt that very much. It could very well be they have never grown this one. Also, grown in shade the leaves will be more bronze than the leaves will be grown in much more sun than they get in Holland. Go into the Esveld web site, look around and notice the color differences from their Maples than what we get here with some of our Maples. Jim
I recieved the A. macrophyllum seeds collected from a tree in Boonville, Northern CA. A nurseryman in Boonville is growing seedlings and calling the red ones 'Spring Red' for lack of a better name. He is not suggesting that this is a new cultivar or form (at this point) he is just differentiating them from other seedlings by color. Being the maple nut (I mean samara) around here, he asked me to grow out a bunch of seeds and try to find the 'best'. The parent tree is an old specimen of perhaps 75 years and is about 50' tall by the same wide. This tree is quite red, much redder than other natives that I have seen. The seedlings from the parent are varied in their degree of colors and how long they maintain their red color. The seedling that I enclosed a picture of in the original post seems to hold its color longer and is of a deeper red than other seedlings that I have grown. robert
Those reddish seedlings should be called f. rubrum as this name has already been coined for all such variants, the cultivar name 'Spring Red' not being applied until a distinctly superior seedling is selected and grafted.
Still holding the color nicely into week 3 or so since bud break. See updated photo in original post.
Week four and still holding red color. Some leaves beginning to bronze as chlorophyll masks the anthocyanins but the overall color is still red.
This is one of my greatest problems in trying to identify Japanese Maples .... the colours I get in my garden are so widely different sometimes from those in Oregon or even Holland or elsewhere. And then, of course, they vary again if in sun or shade (and how much sun?) etc etc I still love my addiction though :) Interesting to see the change in colour at two weekly intervals here. Maybe I should start to do that with a few of my doubtful varieties to see if it would assist identification ?
Hi Sam: A lot of times we try to ID a Maple way too early in the plants life. One of the biggest problems of yesteryear perhaps much more so today was that people automatically felt that the Maple was what the person that sold it to them told them it was. The people I had the most respect for are the ones that had enough knowledge to question the name and in several cases the origin of the Maple. I am not referring to the people that choose to be obstinate either. It takes more courage to say I do not know the name of it rather than have someone say it is this or that name and be clueless as to why. When I ask someone what makes you feel it is that name you just called it is when most of the people that have made a guess or have little foundation in Maples will have no answers for me, no basis to fall back on. Today, people are buying the name of the Maple rather than studying the plant before they buy it. If they bought the Maple from someone that is well known and has been around in Maples for several years then the Maple has to be what they are calling it, right? I've seen enough instances for one lifetime whereby that is not true. We cannot adequately base an identification on one photo from a book or even photos from a couple of books, even from books in which the authors have not seen the plants they are writing about but have photos of the plant or from online web sites. To do that is being silly as we only see one or two frames, a brief instant in time of the Maple but we need to see several and a series of photo frames in order for us to compile the movie of the Maple. What Robert is doing with this Maple treats us to what he is seeing in the color changes this Maple is undergoing so far in this growing season. Even when the year is over will the coloring hold true next year and in successive years. That is what I want to know. The person that knows and has a genuine feel for Maples waits to be sure of what the plant does, looks like over time, sees how it is in relation to the same Maple grown elsewhere. It will mean nothing to people to tell them that a Crimson Queen grown in Portland can look different than a Crimson Queen looks grown in Eugene and that Crimson Queen can look different still a few miles down the road in Roseburg or that a Crimson Queen grown in Mendocino can look different than one grown in Santa Rosa and again look different than one grown in Fresno. I just saw a series of red dissectums come into a nearby Home Depot from an Oregon nursery and it took me 3 visits, one time in good light, to figure out what those Red Dragon, Inaba shidare and Garnets were. They are Crimson Queen, Red Select and Inaba shidare. As the main guy whom works there with a degree from UC Davis said to me, for this price who cares what the right names are. I said to him I care but for landscape plants or sold to a homeowner it does not really matter as they are nice plants for a bargain price. Let the enthusiasts that are supposed to know these Maples go bananas over the names, it will be good for them. I am hesitant to name a Maple in this forum because I am not going to see enough of the plant to know if I am right or not. My instincts will tell me a name but because I cannot see enough of the Maple I feel as though I can still be wrong, whereas if I were to see the Maple in person and see it in various stages in a growing season then I should know that Maple. We waited no less than two years of having a new dissectum before we had what we felt was enough information to know which one it was. Today, we have people grafting 3 year old Maples thinking they have something unique and in about the 5th year the Maple becomes another Maple that has been around in the nursery trade for several years. As we can see in one of Michaels Maples we have reverting to deal with also. Ive seen Beni fushigi revert and within a year the whole Maple looked like Michaels vigorous growth does. Ive also seen people market the changed Maple as being Beni fushigi as well when of course it was not if we know Beni fushigi. I would suggest for the Maples you have in which there are questions in your mind as to what they are that you do what Robert is doing and then some of us can help. I realize that coloring seen from one year to the next can change on us. What we need to see is some consistency and in some Maples we may not see what we need to see as the colors may not hold. That is the problem with so many new names to hit the market as so few of them have a stock plant that we can go back to and use as a standard reference. Yes, some of the colors that Esveld is getting may not be seen in many areas and some of the Maples may not look right to some of us but we have at our disposal, thanks to them, almost the equivalent of an online Maple repository to work with. Between Esveld and the Ganshukutei web sites we have the ability to make some correlation in their Maples which may give us a better idea as to what we may have. There is no substitute for paying attention to our Maples that we have but many people have overlooked their plants and even more today are not seeing what they need to see. Some just do not want to see either and we have nurseries and other plant entities with that same basic feeling of not really wanting to know what they have. Best regards, Jim
Jim brings up many good questions that we should ask ourselves as propagators and collectors before we rush off to name a "new" cultivar or even to a more extreme sell a "new" cultivar. As we all know, maples go through a myraid of change from season to season and even year to year. This is one of the things that makes them so appealing. But on the other hand it is something that we should be aware of when we are confronted with naming a new cultilvar. When considering a new cultivar, the plant should be analyzed through many years (8-10) of observation until it is mature. This would give the propagator ample time to evaluate it thorough many seasons of change. The new plant in question should be grown in different environmental conditions. Dry, wet, sun shade, cool, hot. If possible, the new plant in question should be grown in different parts of the country (world..) and cultivation should occur in the ground. Soil types shoould be taken into consideration. Plants should be researched out for similarities...worldwide. Books, catalogs and visits to nurseries and the web should be used for comparisons. Forums such as this can be invaluble in gaining information. And finally, side by side comparisons should be made.
