I have a Higasayama that has not looked right all year. I've tried it in a few locations to try and make it happy and pretty, but so far no luck. But the funny thing is that the rootstock started growing and I kinda like it better than the cultivar (or at least how the cultivar is presenting this year)! Anybody know what it is?
Ha, yes! Perhaps my wording was poor. What I meant was does this A.p. seedling remind anyone else of something else? If so, what? Anybody care to speculate as to the parents? Because the leaf shape reminds me of something other than your standard A.p. seedling. It's tickling my brain... Perhaps that photo doesn't show it well. I'll try again.
Winterhaven, I misunderstood your question. I grow many maples from seeds and, unless I keep track from which tree they come from, it is impossible to tell who the parents are. At best I can identify the species (palmatum, amoenum, amoenum var. matsumurae, shirasawanum,…) most of the time. Sometimes in a batch of seedlings from the same tree you may find an astonishing (and beautiful) diversity, this is the case often with the amoenum var. matsumurae (otherwise known as dissectums) seeds. In other cases you have more uniformity but in the case of the species mentioned I have never seen two identical plants. Therefore I do not think anybody could seriously give you a tentative cultivar name as being the putative parent of your rootstock. Confirmation of species would make more sense. Gomero
I appreciate the information as I have yet to grow seeds. I think I quite like this understock with its elongated "finger-like" extensions and the red/orange edging. I just may let it grow for another year and see what happens. If the Higasayama underperforms for a third year in a row I just may have to hack it off, keep the understock, and replace the Higasayam with another. I'll be sure to whisper this to the Higasayama next Spring and see if that scares some vigor into it! LOL.
