This a volunteer that overwintered in one of my flower pots. It certainly looks like a maple seedling except that the leaves are not in opposite pairs but seem to be triplets? Does this ever happen? Thanks!
Thanks, Michael. Something I didn't know could happen. It sprouted last year among my flowers in the pot and I almost pulled it out because I thought it couldn't be a maple, but forgot about it till this spring. Since it survived the winter here in Boise Idaho, I will grow it on in the pot and see if it continues to have groups of three leaves. I have 3 japanese maples growing in the bed where the pot resides. Garnet, Aureum and Mikazuki. However everything is close to a large silver maple that is in the yard. Guess it's not necessarily an acer palmatum, but it is interesting.
I'd been going to suggest Silver Maple as the likely species! If you have a large one nearby, then that's what it is - I only didn't suggest it because Boise is out of its native range so I wasn't sure if there would be a seed source for it.
I had a leader on A. pseudoplatanus 'Esk Sunset' with triples all up it this winter. The birds were so thrilled that they ate all the buds, and I thought best to cut it off finally. Indeed that looks like a Silver Maple seedling. We are due a Silver Maple apocalypse in a few weeks, judging from the amount of fruit on the ground...
Indeed! Boise has a lot of Silver Maples planted all over the city and we inherited ours. It is very large and shades the house and some of my Japanese maples. I guess that the majority of the little seedlings I find are silver maples and I don't need another one for sure. It will be fun to see what this one does though.
