Hello everyone. I ran into a little snag this evening as I was going to post my Ichigyoji photos to the gallery. Wanting to be accurate, I did a little research and found that there may be a little sorting out of things that needs to be done. Anyone up for a discussion? It there ever were two trees worthy of a discussion Osakazuki and Ichigyoji would fit the bill. Look at this series of photos and we can see at least two different trees, one with 5 lobes and one with 7 lobes, with varing degrees of division between lobes. Esveld: Ichigyoji http://www.esveld.nl/htmldia/a/ex/acpici.htm Add to these photos the plant pictured in the Vertrees 3rd ed. that really has more pointed lancolate lobes rather than ovate. I think there is a similar photo on Esveld. Here is a tree I just bought recently as Ichigyoji with a similar leaf shape to one form of Osakazuki. One photo pictures the small 1gal. Osakuzuki (in the front) I purchased the same day as the Ichijyoji. The Osakazuki having a darker green leaf. I suspect the questions Jim asks in this thread have some bearing on the discussion: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=816&highlight=Ichigyoji Any thoughts? I have no additional information to provide on my tree as the way you see it below is the only way I have seen it. No spring or fall clor to rely on. But, what can be said it the lobes of this tree and some of the Esveld tree are much more than divided only 1/2 way to the leaf base--they are over 2/3. Michael
In regards to your 'Ichigyoji' what do you really want to know? I see one leaf that is right for 'Ichigyoji' - pronounced "Ichi go joe" by the people I hung around with. So with that in mind do we call the plant an 'Ichigyoji' or not when I see most of the leaves are not right for 'Ichigyoji'? Same is true for the 'Osakazuki' in that I am seeing more leaves not right yet for that Maple either. We cannot in many cases compare a young plant with an older one. With the older plant we should see more consistency to the shapes of the leaves, does not always hold true but that is what we hope for. As I remember it 'Ichigyoji' is pretty much always a heptalobum. We may see a modified lobe in between the two shortest lobes on occasion but we should see a crease or indentation in many of the lobes, much like the "u" shape I refer to with 'Ogurayama' but in many 'Ichigyoji' we will also see a twisting or an irregular, slight bulbous shape in the lobe nearing the tips to some of the inner lobes, whereby the lobes are not always uniform in shape from leaf to leaf. The lobes are seldom divided beyond 1/3 the way to the palm of the leaf. Seedlings from 'Ichigyoji' can be cut from 2/3 or more to the palm, same with some of the seedling 'Osakazuki' which really creates problems for us in thinking the Maple could be an 'Osakazuki' or an 'Ichigyoji' but at the same time feeling those Maples are not the "real deal" either. Now to really confuse things, there has been a form of 'Koreanum' without the blue colored backside of the leaf that has been sold as 'Osakazuki' in Oregon. That form of 'Koreanum' does not have the light green coloring mixed in with the darker green, actually a light green shading that we can see in several to just a few of the interior lobes. That Maple can also have lobes in 5's and 7's but predominately in 7's. We felt that the other form, not the true form of 'Koreanum', may have originated from Japan. On very rare occasions, even one of the forms of 'Osakazuki' can throw out lobes in 9's but it is rare to see it unless we are looking specifically for it and happen to see a leaf or two on the tree. 'Osakazuki' has confused people since day one of its importation from Japan. The first 'Osakazuki' to come in were in fact japonicums. The next series of importations came in as being called 'Taihai' which is a darker colored green form than most of what we've seen here shown in the Maple forums as being 'Osakazuki'. So, a stipulation had already been made in Japan back in the early to mid 60's that the old form 'Osakazuki' and the newer form were not the same plant. The beni and akame forms of 'Osakazuki' are also the lighter green leaf of the Maple we more commonly see, with leaves not as large in size as the darker green form can get. The ends of the lobes before the tips will nod whereas the darker green leafed form does not nod at all and the darker form has a much shorter in length tip to the lobes as well. Planted together the darker green form of 'Osakazuki' and 'Ichigyoji' do not resemble each other well by leaf size, overall leaf shape and separation of the lobes. The light green forms of 'Osakazuki' contrast even more to an 'Ichigyoji' as the leaves are in no way even remotely close to how deeply the lobes can be separated. As of right now based on what I am seeing from the photos of them, I am not so sure the various forms of 'Taishaku' from Japan are not forms of 'Ichigyoji'. The 'Hiro taishaku' as pictured in the Ganshukutei web site is how I remember 'Ichigyoji' looking like in the Fall both here when we did see good Fall color on our Maples and also in Japan, more notably in Kyoto and in Osaka. Jim
Hi Jim, What do I really want to know? Based on the multiple forms of Ichigyoji I saw in various photos, I wanted to know what the correct form was. Additionally, it seems that with many maples there is an old form or Japanese form, what we would consider the true form and then other "forms" that have been introduced from seedlings that share some, but not all characteristics. I was hoping to find out how the puzzle fits together. When I bought the two trees above, I was rembembering what Vertrees had written about the possibility of Osakazuki and Ichigyoji being sister seedlings. While this seems like a lovely idea for a combination planting, one red and one orange in fall, it seems now that it is less likely the true form of Ichigyoji is a seedling realted to Osakauzki at all. If we compare the photos of the Taishakus and the strong amoenum form of Ichigyoji shown by Vertrees I can see the grouping of leaf characteristics. Now, the other piece of the puzzle, which we can really only sort out in spring and fall, is whether or not the form of Ichigyogi I just bought will show the right fall color and if so, can we then think it is a seedling selection from Osakazuki? I took some time to look at Koreanum or what I think Vertrees calls Korean Gem and I see the similarities that you suggest with Osakazuki. If we combine this with the diversity in the Osakazuki gallery thread and the idea of a japonicum form and the existence of Taihai, we have many more variables to consider for Osakazuki as well as many opportunities for seedling forms that may have been introcuded as Ichigyoji. I'll see what happens in the fall. It may well be that my tree turns red and it is nothing more than Osakazuki-like. Regardless, the Esveld gallery alone leaves a great deal to be sorted for Ichigyoji. Michael
When we criticize photos, from an objective viewpoint, of Maples shown in web sites we have to realize that some of these plants have been around, been in the ground for a while at various gardens. It used to be that when we saw what may be a seedling of another Maple such as a seedling selection of 'Osakazuki' that showed a lighter green color that the old guard strongly considered the seedling a form of 'Osakazuki' until they were able to see characteristics in the seedling that were different from the parent. Then, there is the notion of how beni and the akame forms came about as they did not arise from seedlings but were sports that turned those colors and were later grafted and then grown on hoping that those offspring would develop the pink borders and internal pink coloring to the leaf and for akame have the rose pink coloring and shading in the interior of the leaf. Both of those forms could have been named separately when we use the rationale that only seedlings are true forms of a Maple. In other words 'Beni osakazuki' could have been recognized here and in Japan and in some cases this form has been sold by very select nurseries, by only a couple in Oregon that I know of, as being 'Beni osakazuki'. The forms of 'Kasagiyama' that I know were never sold as 'Beni kasagiyama', 'Aka kasagiyama', 'Shiro kasagiyama' in Japan or elsewhere as the people that had those Maples first off did not really want to sell them as they were collection material plants, meaning that years ago the feeling was that only collectors would have interest in them. Nurseries would lump all four forms together and call them with the burgundy form we more commonly see as all being 'Kasagiyama'. I agree with that. Where we get into trouble is when lumped Maples are selected out and then later sold as being in this case a 'Beni osakazuki' or an 'Aka kasagiyama', which if we look at the Ganshukutei web site we can see the aka form of this Maple that I have seen still being called 'Kasagiyama'. I was rather pleased to see that and to see that form still around to be honest. As you know Michael, I have what appears to be at this time the old beni form of 'Kasagiyama' here. Before I saw the photos of the 'Taishaku' I did not know of any other forms of 'Ichigyoji'. Don Kleim deliberately planted an 'Ichigyoji' and an 'Osakazuki' in the ground next to each other to prove in his own way that the Maples are quite different from each other. In his mind they were not sister seedlings, so I grew up on Maples believing that they were not from the same parents or forms of each other. Technically, 'Taihai' and 'Osakazuki' are synonymous meaning that referring to one Maple meant we are referring to the other but again I learned them to be different also even though they are both the dark green colored leaf. What has to be consistent with 'Osakazuki' is not so much the Fall color being a crimson red in some areas or a scarlet red in some others but what we looked for were the red colored samaras. Yes, I've seen some 'Osakazuki' sold with yellow to gold colored samaras and I quickly dismissed them as being 'Osakazuki'. They could be seedlings from the old Maples, 'Osakazuki' and 'Taihai' but those seedlings were not true. A lot of our dilemma is in who we learned Maples from in that select people in California were raised on Maples by the Japanese in Japan. Later on we had people that grew up in Japan that moved here and brought some Maples with them. Most of the Europeans had to rely on someone to go to Japan to pick up some Maples and bring them in of which this did happen. What happened after that is a mystery to me and was to others in that some of the names of Maples became changed around, meaning the name of the Maple that came into Europe became another name once it had been in Europe for a short time. In one garden in particular in England the names of the Maples remained as what those Maples came into England as being. After a while as other gardens wanted to have some of these Maples some of the names had changed from what they were when they were first imported or brought back in. The limiting factor was that people elsewhere had to go to Japan or have contacts in Japan to sort the names out but I am not sure this was done but I do know of one person in England that was in constant contact with certain people here in the US. Then we went through a stage whereby named Maples in Japan have indeed been granted new names in Europe. We saw the same thing happen with Pines that were raised and grown here mostly from East Coast nurseries and arboretums, but once in Europe the names had become changed later without any real reasoning given to those people here that gave them or sold them the plants to start with. There has always been a language barrier not only with us here in the US with the Japanese but also in the written Kanji with the Japanese themselves. When Don Kleim wanted copies of the Koidzumi, Nakai, Momotani but not so much the Ogata Maples of the World books, Don knew the books were written in symbols but wanted to have the books translated into English. Don made arrangements to buy the first three books for $10,000 providing they were translated into English and the translation was verified by three people in Japan. In other words that the three people could agree on the translation but that later became quite difficult as the symbols used were a little variant to what the newer Kanji was and for a while some of the symbols could not be translated. So what happened is that professors in a couple of Universities had to translate the symbols into the newer Kanji and then have the text translated into English. It took 8 years for all of this to happen. In the interim Don already had the Ogata book and his dissertation on Maples and was translated long before he got the other three books in . Even then Don had three men of Japanese descent here look over the translations from the three books before he would read the books. It was after reading the three books that Don Kleim initiated the largest in number of plants Maple importation from Japan in 1972. On his way back Don dropped off 27 varieties of Maples to J.D. in Roseburg, just gave them to him. Now we can see several of them shown in the various Vertrees and Vertrees/Gregory Japanese Maples books because of Don's generosity to J.D. There were two other later importations that J.D. also benefited from in the same manner with Maples dropped off and given to him. With the two Maples you bought I suggest you monitor them for a few years as you may not know what they are until a few years down the road. One gallon sized Maples can change on us rather fast but what we should not see with established cultivars of five gallon and larger sized Maples is dramatic changes seen in them unless we helped cause it in some way. Five gallon plants should be old enough to give a better indication as to what we have. I cannot speak for seedlings raised from true form parents though as it has been my experience that a seedling 'Bloodgood' for example raised from a grafted parent really never does look quite like the parent does for year round color. Jim
Here are some updated photos from the second week of October. The color is coming through very nicely. What color will the samaras be?
Just some photos to revitalize the discussion. Nothing to say yet, but maybe in a few weeks. Strange spring leaf form and color.
