Winter is the time when the bark of maples deserves your attention. I have thought that putting the pics together will allow a better observation of differences (if there are!). I’ll start with a selection of snakebarks. When you place the cursor on any picture you will see the name Enjoy! Gomero
Very nice Gomero, would be difficult to choose just one of the group to grow. Haven't seen much of a selection in the retail nuerseries here, although A. griseum is usually available.
Try calling around on the phone to see what local nurseries have next spring. Various snakebark maples have been stocked for years by garden centers down here. Some come from nurseries in the Willamette Valley, but I have also seen unusual maples offered in outlets here that have come from Lower Mainland growers (even though importation of maples into the United States is supposed to be prohibited).
Just so happens, that I was telling an arborist today, about my acer that I pruned the leader off of, to resemble what's about your 10th attachment. Got the call from a Certified Arborist way up in Saskatchewan, who saw my posts online and felt like calling for an introduction. That was fun. Anyhow, mine had a fine leader, but had lateral branches even wider angled than the ones in your photo. So cut the main leader to make a spot where someone could sit in the middle after about 10 years, or, just to make the tree look more interesting. But the stripes on the bark provided enough interest as it was.
Low forking and multiple trunks makes these more effective as the bark is the main feature, more trunks means more bark. Same is true of paperbark maple (Acer griseum).
I am constantly enchanted by the many maples [Acer] that exist thanks to this list showing them to me. I tripped over the snake bark type a couple of years ago and did not really register. Just another Maple for the paddock planting. Now that I look at it it is really something different and nice. I am making an effort to collect a few different ones for autumn colouring as our normal run of the mill small leafed one seems to be the only one commonly grown. It seeds quiet happily all over the place. I have a question about a large leafed one I have out the front. It has a leaf like the one on the Canadian flag about a hand span across. It drops it's yellow leaves from the top down to the skirt and fairly quickly a couple of weeks. It produces seed but they don't seem to grow in the leaf litter like the small leafed maple. Maybe it is not one. [Not a sycamore that is a forest weed up here] and maybe it needs a mate to make seed viable. Any ideas why it will not grow seeds. The reason I say it is a maple is because that is what my father refered to it as when he gave it to me. It is a large tree with good solid trunk and a canopy that is as high as my two storey house. It has been in about 20 yrs. I'm sorry still no camera but should be happening soon. Liz
Re: Bark time!, still more bark. Thank you all for your comments. To continue the series with the snakebarks, here are a number of pics that at a first glance seem to come from different trees, well no!. They are all from the same plant, a 4/5 years old seedling selection from A. davidii. They illustrate the amazing versatility of davidii seedlings which effectively could, each of them, be selected as a distinct cultivar. Notice the abrupt change in colors that appears in the last 3 pics. The last one seems unnatural but I reassure you that I did not paint it over ;o)) Gomero
pics of jm Rufinerve Hatsujuki,acer Negundo,platanoides Crimson King,Jm Oridono nishiki,davidii Ernest Wilson date today...
These snakebarks are street trees outside my building in Vancouver, BC. I think the first one might be an Acer rufinerve - Red-veined maple I didn't know the term 'snakebark' when these were in flower, so I don't know whether this had yellow flowers and could be Acer capillipes - Red snakebark maple or not. It doesn't seem to have the reddish fuzz on the undersides of the leaves that the other one has and the branches droop, whereas the first one's branches are upright and I wasn't able to get near the leaves.
great topic & pictures, Gomero. one of my favorite tree books is the classic: TREE BARK:A Color Guide by Hugues Vaucher published by Timber Press It has some maple snakebarks but hundreds of other trees as well. photography is great
I think this is also Acer capillipes, Red Snake-Bark Maple, a street tree on Nelson at Nicola in Vancouver.
