can anyone tell me the type/cultivar of japanese maples in the nitobe garden? also, is it possible to buy that type anywhere? all i see at the nurseries are the usual, and i love the delicate little leaves on the nitobe maples, and the lovely trunks and branches. many thanks,
The list of plants at Nitobe, which does not change much, has only two species of maples listed. The Acer palmatum date back to the garden's creation and were planted in 1960 or 1961. I have very little information about them--no name beyond Acer palmatum. They came from the Physical Plant, which was the operation responsible for buildings and landscape at UBC at that time. They do carry a Physical Plant number, but I don't have anything to reference that to. (I just sent an inquiry to the current Plant Operations, which handles landscape maintenance now.) An article in Davidsonia on the history and creation of the garden says that some of the maples came from Japan, but is not specific. There are three other accessions of maple, all Acer circinatum, our native vine maple. I may be able to find out more. I will ask around and see if Plant Operations has any of the old planting lists.
thank you very much for your reply. you sound like you have an affiliation with the nitobe garden....whatever else you can find out would be greatly appreciated.
thanks Daniel - do they have an email address and maybe i could direct my inquiry to them? many thanks.
Sorry, perhaps I'm not clear. We are them. Eric is responsible for the data for all plants of the Botanical Garden (including Nitobe), and the best person here to try and track down information from 50 years ago.
I received a reply to my query from Plant Operations. The Acer palmatum at Nitobe Memorial Garden are listed as being donated by the Japan-Canada Society of Tokyo, Japan in 1961. There is no further data on these trees. It may be possible to find out more about them by digging into the archives and sending off a few more queries. Seeds from this group would probably produce trees of equal value. Perhaps we should look at germinating some.
