Here is one I have no idea of the name. The leaf size and colour can be as dark as moonfire but with spikey edges. New shoots in summer are bright red like shaina. It is a very vigorous grower and easy to graft. The colour turns into green with the season. Any suggestions? regards Wolfgang
Any background information, like you bought with a name but lost the label? Is it grafted? Or could it be an unnamed seedling?
Just a thought webwolf: How many and for what purpose are you grafting this tree? Where did it come from to begin with? If it came from a seedling, it would be preferable not to give it a recognized name, or even suggest one. I think some members of this forum will be uncomfortable with these sorts of open inquiries about identification. For a response, you will have to be a little more forthcoming. Maybe you should talk to the source you got the tree from. Michael
identification Hi, More information: I bought all my maples in nurseries around here. Because maples are not cheap to buy I sometimes look for bargains and that was one of them. The labels were missing, but I did not care then. Now, five years later I got hooked on growing maples and graft them since three years. Some of the mother plants I could identify later but this one I have not find a name for yet. So, if anyone can help me I would appreciate it. regards Wolfgang
Hi Webwolf: I think we will need to see more images of your Maple to better determine whether it is a named variety or not. I am confused with the image of the three leaves and what I am seeing from the plant. I think some close ups of the plant and more images of the leaves may be of some help. Not all unmarked Maples are unnamed. Many times the people at the nursery do not know what Maple it is after the tag has been lost. I've plucked several bargains in the past when the labels had been lost or were illegible. Even a prominent wholesale nursery today which will go nameless by me has Red Emperor being sold as a Red Leaf Japanese Maple. Yet, their EmperorI is being sold by the correct name. I think most of us want a Maple to have a name but the name itself is not all that important as the tree itself is what is more relevant in the higher scheme of things. Grafting unnamed Maples or Maples we are not sure of is okay to do but we have to be cautious when doing so as it is not looked on very well by others if the Maple is to be sold. There have been Maples sold in the past that were nothing more than a seedling or an Atropurpureum seedling as a name in which the Maple did not have a varietal name at all. Bloodgood is a good example of that in which the plant sold online and elsewhere was not a Bloodgood at all. If I were to graft or take cuttings from a Maple in which the plant did not have a name or the name was in doubt I would do it to have more plants to evaluate so I can monitor this Maple over time and then determine if the Maple was a named variety. I am willing to wait 5 years just to see if the pink leafed sport on one of my Osakazuki's will hold true before I will graft it and then see if that sport will hold true on the young grafts for another 5 years before I feel I have something unique and unusual. Years ago we would wait 7-10 years of closely monitoring Maples before we would name the plant, if it deserved to be named. Also, characteristics that we see when the plant is young can and do change after about the 5th year. The variegation or the leaf structure that had us hopeful the Maple was something different may indeed revert back to being a standard Maple in the 6th year and the unusual features may not show up again in the upcoming years. Give us more to work with and we may have a better idea as to what your Maple is. At this stage it could be one of any of a number of red leafed Maples or is just an unnamed seedling. Jim
Atropurpureum Hi, I followed the advice of one of the members and went back to the nursery I bought the maple from. I found a huge group of established maples looking by the leaf and the way they branch like mine. The label was acer 'palmatum atropurpureum'. To me it translates in 'just a red japanese maple'. The price was lower than the other named maples. I also went into the picture gallery and found a maple entered as "palmatum f. atropurpureum" looking simular to mine. You are are probably right by saying that there is not so much in a name, but when maples and maple grafting is your hobby, I would still like to now what I am growing. So, if my maple is a 'palmatum atropurpureum', does that mean it is a non grafted 'street variety'. I thought it was a grafted variety looking at the trunk but I might be wrong. regards Wolfgang
You don't so much have a street tree as a red maple that is relatively true from seed. While few maples can be grown true from seed, atropurpureum is the red standard. The majority of offspring will be much like the parent tree, but you can see some variability. Almost all will be red. Some will be more red than others and they will hold their color from red to green in different fashion. At one time, A. p. f. atropurpureum was probably grafted or grown from cuttings, but its ability to reproduce relatively true from seed has caused us to use the name to represent the standard red maple grown from seed. There is a good deal of confusion created by how atropurpureum is handled, but the trees are usually large in comparison ot many cultivars of Japanse maples and do make hardy and robust landscape trees. Many cultivars such as Bloodgood, Fireglow, Nuresagi, Moonfire, etc. have seedling ties to f. atropurpeum. The problem is that because the seedlings are true to name, some very true, they are often grafted and sold in the nursery trade as A. p. 'Bloodgood' or similar cultivars. Here in the western United States, Bloodgood has been diluted to such a great degree by grafted seedlings of f. atropurpurem, that it very hard to find a true-to name plant and we have done oursleves the disservice of not knowing the parent plant any longer. What your leaves show at the in the basal lobes is explained to some degree by what you have turned up in your search. The seedlings of f. atropurpureum are usually and should be sold much cheaper, usually slightly more expensive than rootstock, as they are propagated from seed and are therefore less labor intensive and loss or failure of a seed to germinate really has no effect on the grower. It is of course still possible that your tree has a name other than the one you have identified, but not too likely. I have four seedlings of f. atropurpeum and I enjoy them a great deal. They are 3 years old now and have some of the best color of any of my maples. One is deep purple with serrated lobes and two are more palmate with outstanding fall color to rival Osakazuki. One is acutally green and very slow growing. They are not trees to be discounted by any means, but to graft from them would be to dilute them somehow. Just a personal feeling. If you really like yours, you might graft it, but you might also get some f. atropurpureum seeds and propagate them to see what you get. Thanks for doing the research--Michael (pictures of two of my atropurpureums from this fall are attached).
