I'll snap a pic but yes, the bark does look different. Usugumo https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/75zy...ey=e1quwzptd6tparidaasi97cnq&st=hrxzifg3&dl=0 The latter 2 below I know is just Acer Palma https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/m8m1...ey=8krmxdru8q4mmx9k3c2w819az&st=r78es8o6&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ixp7...ey=q5z5htlrs2lnsz1aezytd8ula&st=1iay8lrn&dl=0
Indeed this is where the OP starts at and me second guessing the sellers reply. In other readings, other responses was that if the -graft took- (aka, pictum uptop/palmatum understock), I am one as long at took (aka, growing)
I don't know if it would actually graft, I'd be surprised if it did. But fact: these are incompatible maples. You could say, they are as incompatible as maples get. Even within Section Platanoidea, which are the maples with white latex sap, you can't graft everything to everything. And even on those that might work, there's all kinds of complication, as in, you don't graft pictum on cappadocicum, because the differences in the second year twig color (brown v. green) make them incompatible in the long run, though they might live for some years. In German and Dutch, the common name for Acer palmatum is "Smooth Maple", because the bark is smooth. You can see this in your second picture. In the picture of Usugumo, the bark is not smooth, actually it looks very much like Acer truncatum, and nothing like Acer palmatum. Acer palmatum does not have white latex in the sap, so it cannot graft successfully with pictum, which does. Anyone who is telling you that you can graft pictum on palmatum is quite simply wrong. Still, believe what you like!
Yes, I agree the bark on the Usu appears not smooth... Maybe the seller doesn't have a clue what he is stating. Or what -understock- his friend used to graft it ? Just trying to get ahead of the curve....not grow a plant for X years and have it fail, have it decline, due to wrong rootstock. If so, I'd rather just get the same cultivar elsewhere with the correct understock
LOL, Both those things seem true. But from your photo, it appears to be grafted on truncatum, as far as can be guessed from the photo. So I think you'll be OK.
A thought came to me but it's too dang cold, frozen and I winter buried them to prep for this year planting...that I can use to compare I have 2 other pictums (different seller). Hoshi and Naguri that I can use to compare bark They arrived with a good 40" leader on them but the graft is probably 1/3 below the potted soil line as a WAG.
It is Acer Mono after all. I was scrolling some pics trying to find one where I wasn't paying attention during the growing season and the understock did send one stem out that I snipped off late into the season.The leaf on that pic brought this inquiry full circle . I suppose this wouldn't be a thread if the seller:grower:propagator actually told me the correct info instead of reply acer palmatum.
The correct name for the species is Acer pictum, not Acer mono, which has been superseded (rightly or wrongly) for a long time now. 'Usugumo' is seen listed as Acer pictum f. ambiguum, 'Usu-gumo' (to put everything in the international format), for example Yano uses this species designation, but it isn't fully recognized. In other words, Acer mono (the old way of writing the species) is now written Acer pictum subsp. mono.
I know we were talking understock lately.... I should have a taken pic of my new pictums in retrospect. Naguri Nishiki and Hoshi Yadori. I think I might have to dig them up.....as as I type this, I'm mildly concerned. Roughly below the graft, it wasn't a gradual transition but some a large roundish knobbish *clump*. solid, smooth.. when I say mildly concerned.....in the back of my mind, as I was typing to describe this, gall came to mind
