Does anyone have any pictures of Acer palmatum 'Sherwood Flame'? Is it the same as Acer palmatum 'Burgundy Lace'?
This is an old thread. I bought this Sherwood Flame one month ago and planted it 2 to 3 weeks ago. Its grower was Iseli nursery. The closeup of the foliage shows that it is not as deeply cut and dissected as foliage of Sherwood Flame I've seen elsewhere on the Internet. So, I'm kind of suspicious whether it's really a Sherwood Flame. I went back to the nursery where I bought it from and they had three other SFs. Everyone of them had the same leaf shape as mine. I also visited another nearby nursery and they had two Sherwood Flames grown by Iseli and again the leaf shape on them was identical to mine. So I am very baffled. Is it a mislabeled plant? I hope not because Iseli is a big grower. Regardless what it is, I love this tree because it's got such great color considering that my locale is not conducive to producing bright red fall foliage on Japanese maples because our autumns are not usually cold enough.
What is the true 'Sherwood Flame'?, the standard reference books show a deeply cut leaf. Mine, shown in the attached pic, is similar to the pictures in the books. I guess this is all that can be said without having access to the original plant selection for confirmation. Gomero
It's interesting your SF is so shrubby looking. Descriptions of SF on several websites describe its stature as upright and the foliage as relatively sparse between the layers so as not to require much pruning. An example is here: http://japanesemaplesandconifers.com/Acer_palmatum_Sherwood_Flame.html Steve
Don Kleim had 35 plus year old Sherwood Flame in his nursery back in 1990. This fact predates the Curtis attribution of this Maple being named in 1970 by a few years. As far as I know the dozen or so stock plants of Sherwood Flame at Henderson Experimental Gardens, all on their own roots [never had been grafted] are still onsite. Wood was taken from these trees only and were generally but not all the time grafted onto red seedling rootstock. The plant I have posted photos of in this forum is one of the original grafted plants from this nursery. From the photos I have posted and the photo from the Iseli web site, clearly shows the same coloration in our two trees. Gomero's plant is right there for color as well from his photo. Based on the color of the Maple in question I see no real reason why a Maple residing in the "East Bay" let's say from Richmond to the North down to Hayward, cannot turn a richer Fall color than we see from our trees in and around Fresno. Woodside on the West Bay as well as Palo Alto do see good Fall color from their red palmatum type Maples in most years. Around Dublin is not a real non Fall color factor either but living in Livermore, with more soil salinity and warmer daytime temperatures, may impact these plants somewhat from a Fall color standpoint. It is not so much the shapes of the leaves that have me puzzled, it is the color of the leaves showing a rose pink coloration that concerns me the most for this Maple being a Sherwood Flame. Iseli nursery is pretty good about not mixing up their labels on their Maples, so if a group of Maples all look like yours, with the same color, then I am not sure what to say. There are other factors that can influence the color of these trees other than night time and morning low temperatures. I'll go back to mentioning light again and say that a tree in full sun usually but not always is more likely to show better Fall color than one will when placed or grown in shade. A lot is also determined by the age of the tree as well. Then we have the nutrient issue in that a late Summer dose of Nitrogen can impact Fall color. We can get some allover false color once gel caps such as Osmocote or other time release fertilizers break open and release their materials. We can get a masking affect from it in that certain nutrients applied late in the season can enable the plant to show more pink in color than what we would normally see. The old Aluminum sulfate trick on Hydrangeas is not endemic just for those plants to force a change in the overall color of the plant. In Maples we see more subtle color changes but we can induce a softening of the red color by applying nutrients to our plants late in the growing season. Sherwood Flame is a willowy upright tree in that it wants to grow tall at first and then spread, almost to the point of having the lower lateral shoots cascade a little as seen from around the entire tree. Burgundy Lace does not grow as tall or as fast as Sherwood Flame. Sherwood Flame is a much more vigorous growing plant while it is young all through its juvenile years than Burgundy Lace is. The problem here is that many of the current day Burgundy Lace are not quite what the old Maple was in that it has been speculated that the nurseries still selling Burgundy Lace are selling a more compact seedling than the old Maple was. A true form Burgundy Lace is not so easy to find any more as this Maple did have some real issues with dieback from alboatrum and with the advent of Tight Bark in the plants system, almost wiped this Maple out in the nursery trade. What used to be a very popular Maple was not seen in its old form for many years, although still sold by that name in retail nurseries, was not the same plant as the old Maple was. For one thing the lobes were much wider than the old plants were. Also, the newer form of Burgundy Lace does not grow as tall as the old form will in most locations. Not sure why this is but the newer plant may only get up to half the height of the old plant. We are essentially talking about a Maple that was around 12-15 feet at maturity years ago to the nursery industry Maple, around here, now being around 6-9 feet tall at maturity. The newer form Burgundy Lace is a much more compact growing plant than the old form Maple was. The main difference in the two Burgundy Lace other than life expectancy is that the newer form does a whole lot better in a landscape than the older Maple. The newer tree is more versatile and can better adapt itself to more growing conditions than the older form did. The old Burgundy Lace was a fussy plant to grow for many people but where it grew well, it was a real charmer for a red Maple. Another thing to mention is that we do not see the lobes shrink down in size nearly as much after the Spring leaf out in the new Maple than we saw in the old Burgundy Lace. Those Spring leaves could have a narrowing of the lobes easily shrunk down to half in size by Summer in width than they were in the Spring. The newer form or perhaps other seedling forms only shrinks down in size after the mid to late Summer new growth. Forgot to mention that the older growth on the old form Burgundy Lace will show some twisting to the side lobes, not so much seen as pronounced from the basal lobes however and seldom seen at all in the central lobes. Let’s wait for the Spring photos and see if we are in the ballpark for this Maple being a Sherwood Flame and then see the Summer leaf color and the Fall color next year. Jim
I will address several points in your reply. I live in Castro Valley, which adjoins Hayward and San Leandro. Japanese maples are very common in my neighborhood and none of my neighbors' for several blocks around turned even remotely carmine red this year. My neighbors' J. maples are all either dark burgundy or green. Our water has very high hardness and dissolved solids. It tastes slightly salty, too. Are these factors in not bringing good fall color? When I bought my Sherwood Flame from East Bay Nursery in Berkeley on Oct. 17, it was at the beginning orange/red stage with minor amounts of green blended in. I didn't know a thing about J. maples when I bought it, but I liked it because it was the most orange/red tree in the whole nursery at that time of the year. When I took the pictures around November 12, the tree looked much redder than it did on Oct. 17. Now on Nov. 18, it's even brighter red than on Nov. 12, but the leaves are beginning to shrivel or drop. Because the tree was delivered from Berkeley to my home in Castro Valley around Nov. 1, its redness can not be attributed to growing conditions in Castro Valley. At East Bay Nursery, the three other Sherwood Flames I saw there on Nov. 7 were mostly green, with slight shadings of yellow or orange and rosy color here and there, but no bright redness anywhere. All their Bloodgoods were bright red, as were all their Twombly's Red Sentinels. One Fireglow they had was bright red; the other was still dark burgundy. I was told the 2 Fireglows were delivered from different locations several months earlier. Their only Osakazuki was still completely green on Nov. 7. They had others, but their names escape me at this time, but these were the ones that stuck out. The "other nursery" that I mentioned where I saw Sherwood Flames was Roger Reynolds Nursery in Menlo Park. They had two 11-ft tall S.F. which were pale rosy pink instead of red, like the rosy red in the pictures I posted, but slightly more pale. Probably they turned redder now, I don't know. They had been at Roger Reynolds since April and were grown in full sun the whole time. At that same time around Nov. 1, my tree was already much deeper red all over the tree. I agree I should wait until next spring to take more pictures and post them here to solve this mystery. Steve
