That's fasciation, not fascination! I was harvesting scions from my A.p. 'Wou nishiki' a while back and noticed it has some fasciated (flattened) stems like 'Sekka yatsubusa'. I was wondering if this cultivar is prone to display that type of mutation, or if this is a unique occurance I'm seeing. Its kind of cool...
Here are some pictures of my fasciated A.p. 'Wou nishiki'. This is happening on only one branch of the tree, so I guess you would consider this a sport? The first picture shows a scion I harvested a few weeks ago. You can see that the stem is somewhat flattened and that the buds have an odd placement. I've made several grafts of these fasciated stems, so I'm hoping I can preserve this mutation. The second picture (taken today) shows a MUCH more fasciated stem with the leaf nodes all bunched up in groups and the flattened, ridged stem. Its almost like its 3 stems combined into 1. The third shot is of another fasciated stem a little higher up on the same branch. The cool thing is that the stems this year appear to be even more fasciated than the ones from last year. The buds/leaves are bunched up much more thickly and regularly than on the scions I harvested earlier. I'm hoping that means the mutation is getting even more extreme, and that I'll have even better scions next year. Anyway, I think its all pretty cool, and very unexpected to find something like that happening right in your back yard. Although I don't know how often this kind of thing happens. Do you think its unique? Worth propagating? I'd like some feedback. Thanks
My understanding of fasciation (when it concerns stems) is that it is in effect several conjoined stems, hence the unusual placement of the buds in what seems like side by side pairs. The buds that would normally be opposite are forced to be side by side because each stem is no longer cylindrical but in effect is a discrete sector of the circumference of the conjoined stem. I have never seen this on any of my maples but have on other plants; in tomatoes it is quite common and I have seen stems that have grown in a fasciated manner for a while before eventually returning to a normal growth pattern. It is certainly worth propagating, I would be very interested to see the results of your grafts. One thing that concerned me was the leaf colour in the pictures; do you always get this green spring colour on your 'Wou nishiki'? The leaf shape on your tree matches what I see, but the colour here is light yellowish green in the centre of the leaf shading to bright rose tones in the outer portions. The picture of the spring leaves in Vertrees is an accurate representation of the colours seen here.
Thanks for the info MAF The coloration of this plant is due to the location and our ridiculously warm weather (we've had several weeks in the 70's and 80's - the warmnest day being 87). It was much redder before I moved it to its current spot. Here in Tennessee, our springs warm up so rapidly that we don't get to enjoy the spring colors on the maples as much as areas that warm up slowly. The corallinum types have intense color only for a few days. Literally. The katsura types green up in a flash. The cultivars with reticulation last a while if they're in a lot of shade, and cultivars with red leaf edges or tips last a decent period of time, again, depending on the exposure. Color that lasts a month elsewhere for a lot of folks lasts for about a week here. Its just a climate phenomenon. It sounds like I'm complaining, but we do still have awesme color here in the spring. You just have to get out and enjoy it while it lasts. I'm uploading a few pics on the spring leaves thread to give you an idea. They were taken last week.
Amazing what a difference in climate can do. I will have to see how long it takes my 'Wou nishiki' to green up this year, but I would hazard a guess at 6-8 weeks. Nice pics in the other thread, the only ones leafing out here are 'Katsura' and 'Kotohime', with 'Kiyohime' and 'Murasaki kyohime' and a couple of others standing on the verge of leafout.
