Did anyone already try to sow 100 seeds of Acer palmatum and see the percentage of different forms of Acer palmatum that appears ?
Like and experiment? What controls or methods would be used? Some will not germinate. How long do we wait to make a determination on final leaf type? Two seasons? Just curious. What is the reason for this? Won't the outcome depend on the seed parent and not just the variety, but each individual parent tree? This seems like a tough experiment to me if we want the results to mean something. MJH
Yes, this is just a experiment I'd like to do for fun. Put X seeds from the same standard palmatum tree in moist sand at the beginning of spring. As soon as germination start, sow 100 germinate seeds in a good potting mix. Wait one or 2 years and count the different shape of leaves and colors. I guess a majority of it would look like the parent tree but I'm curious to know how many will be different.
Some cultivars may come partly true, for example a friend has gotten a number of red-twigged seedlings off of a coralbark maple.
I enjoy growing seedlings from cultivars and watching what develops. These are a few of my observations. I have found that most of the offspring looks much like the parent with the exception of the dissectums and linearlobums. Seryu is an exception to this exception, all of the Seryu offspring that I have seen are green lace leafs. Most are uprights. Most of the seed that I have collected from dissectums are not viable. The few that sprout produce few dissectums. I have many dissectum seedlings, but most have come from a non-dissectum parent. I have a few linearlobum seedlings but I am not sure of the seed source. I do know that I have collected a lot of linearlobum seed yet have a small number of that type of offspring. One thing that I have noticed is that the linearlobum leaves do not show until the second year, with a very few exceptions. This is consistent with the fact that Juvenal leaves are produced at branch tips on many adult linearlobums. Most of the upright cultivars produce offspring that have characteristics similar to the parent. It is a matter of degree as to how close they are. Most of the coral bark seedlings will have red bark. Most of the Bloodgood seedlings will have red leaves. Variegation can be another issue. 'Versicolor' and others like it, I would expect to produce few variegated offspring. Others like 'Kasagiyama' do produce similar offspring in small percentages. Let me state this for the record before I get accused of blasphemy. I do not advocate reproducing cultivars from seed. If you want a cultivar, graft it. If you want to sell cultivars, sell grafted trees. Cultivars must be propagated using asexual reproduction only. I encourage people to sow seed and watch what comes up. Grow them out. I can't recall ever seeing an ugly Japanese Maple. That is how we have produced 95% of the cultivars. But not every seedling should be named and declared a cultivar. I must say that I have many seedlings that are more attractive than many of the cultivars in my collection. I acquired the cultivar because it was a name that I didn't have. I look at many of them and still wonder what was so special about that seedling that it deserved cultivar status. Dale
I certainly don't have as much experience with seedlings as Dale has indicated. But, I have grown a couple of dozen each of the last three springs -- all from seed collected from mature acer palmatum trees (some red, some green, most probably not named cultivars). The diversity of the results is simply amazing. You can end up with some very unusual specimens. One of the seedlings that stood out this year had smooth, clear amoenum-like pale green leaves, purplish-red bark, and fire-engine red fall colors that reminded me of my Shin Deshojo. The tree is a couple of years old and I have no idea whether the traits displayed this year will continue as it matures. But, I do intend to hold on to this tree for awhile to see what develops. It may very well end up getting a long-term home in my back yard. Bryan
If you have a picture of this tree, you can post it here. If the tree keeps its particularity, we'll name it Acer palmatum 'Idacer' ;-]
Sorry Andre, But I didn't take any pictures of this tree. I'm not sure why -- maybe it's that stigma surrounding the "named cultivars" thing. If it shows well next year, I'll get some shots to post back here. Bryan
I actually have attempted to do some cross-pollunation of various cultivars this past year. I will be sowing the seeds in a few weeks (they are currently cold stratified). Here are some of the crosses I'm trying, with the seed parent named first and the pollun producer named second: Acer palmatum 'Lemon Chiffon' x Acer palmatum 'Higasayama' Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' x Acer palmatum 'Germain's Gyration' Acer seiboldianum 'Kinugasayama' x Acer plamatum 'Germain's Gyration' I am curious to see how the inner-species hybrids do. My guess is that the viability will be pretty low on them. Here are a couple notes I've made regarding this topic. Dissectums grown adjacent to each other without non-dissectums around will produce a very high percentage of dissected seedlings. Seed viability is very low in an isolated field of a single cultivar, but very high when several cultivars or plain seedlings are grown amongst one another. The reason here is that various cultivars will either produce male or female flowers predominately at one time or another in the spring (natures way of ensuring self pollunation doesn't occur frequently). Fields of only Bloodgood, will generate small hollow samaras, while fields of Bloodgood and Oshio Beni grown side by side will produce a high percentage of viable (and atropurpureum) seed. Regards, Brian
From 10/01 thru 12/05/2005 I planted approx 1572 seeds into 786 tray cells (some had 1 seed, others 3 so assume average 2 seeds/cell). Seeds were picked from trees and immediately planted in the cells. I followed Vertrees 3rd edit pages 82-83 cold stratifying in a refrig 32-40F for 90-95 days. Most trays (72 cells/tray) were put into fridge 11/06 and taken out 2/06/2006. We have had much warm sunny weather (60-70F) and little cloud cover since 2/06/6. I wanted to share germination data thru 2/24/6: 82 different cultivars planted of which 48 types have germinated 240 seedlings out of 1507 seeds (65 seeds still in fridge) Very potent germination rates for: Bloodgood Volubile AP Aureum Koto No Ito Seiryu Moonfire Because the seedlings are only 3 weeks old at most, only some have leaves in addition to their cotyledrons so meaningful information on leaf type/color must await more time. I used EB Whiting Seed Starter Mix as medium and did not chemically treat the seeds nor attempt to alter dormancy except by cold stratification. This is my first year of keeping meticulous planting and germination records and my 2nd year of planting seeds (last year 24.5% germination without cold stratification). Previous to Spring 2005 I would collect adventitious germinations around my yard which I continue to grow out. I agree wholeheartedly with the other posters about the sheer fun and excitement of witnessing seed generativity. I love it. To paraphrase Will Rogers and others, I have yet to meet an acer I didn't like. I especially agree with Dale's final 2 paragraphs and much appreciate his sharing his experience and wisdom of which there is a vast amount on this forum and in the hearts and minds of my colleagues in this forum. I would much enjoy hearing others' vast experience germinating acers. Not only are our trees our teachers but so too other members of this forum and it is to this end I put this information here. Thank you.
And, seed germinated from dissectums grown in close proximity to palmatum or other atropurpureum leaf forms seems to yield a high percentiage of palmate-leafed seedlings. The dissected-leaf characteristic/trait seems to be minimized. Brian, What process did you use in your hybridization experiement. To truly be certain of a true hybridization you would have to ensure a closed system, free of contamination.
Micheal, My cross-pollunation work was very crude by most hybridization standards. Basically I used a series of fine paint brushes to transfer the pollun from the donor to the parent tree. For sure, if I wanted to ensure true hybridizations, I would have isolated the two trees, deflowered the female tree, etc. However, my interest is solely in the physical atributes of the offspring, so my feeling was that although my techniques were crude, the characteristics of the offspring should tell me if the attempts made were sucessful or not. If I was crossing a disease-free strain of tree/vegetable with another strain, then the physical attributes would not be apparent and I would have to isolate the trees being hybridized. But I figure since I'm only looking for physical changes in progeny, then my crude techniques should suffice.... Seems like so many cultivars have arison from chance seedlings at nurseries. If those nurseries had actually played a hand in the pollunation, perhaps the field of cultivars would be more diverse than they are. Or at least thats my thinking now... I might end up with a healthy batch of Acer palmatum greens!!! Ha ha. Oh well, good understocks none-the-less. Brian
Brian, That makes sense. What do you think you would do then if you got at seedling from one of your shirasawanum or sieboldianum hybridizations that looked mostly palmatum but had some eleven lobed leaves or held it samaras upright? Would you then consider it a hybrid? If you traded it with someone would you label it as Acer x whatever? Would you simply call it a palmatum, and in your own mind, be somewhat certain that it had characteristics from the other gene pool? I am just curious and I am certainly not trying to corner you at all. It just seems that the recent upshoot of hybridized varities begs us to ask are they really a result of hybridization at all. Whether or not 'Red Dawn' or 'Johin' or 'Sensu' are hybrids does not detract from their characteristics, but to take the step to give them a hybrid designation, in my mind, does require that someone know what the parentage is. It is kind of like moving Acer palamtum 'Yasemin' in to the shriasawaum group or considering Green 'Trompenburg' a shiraswaum. There are many characteristices in the palmatum-japonicum gene pool that overlap or are shared. When we begin to isolate one characterisitic like samaras, pubescence, lobe number, etc., to group the varities or give validity to a hybrid we can confuse the actual heritatge of the plant in an effort to see what we want to. So anyway, I like the idea of your efforts in trying to create an interspecfic hybrid. I wish I had more time to toy with that sort of thing myself. I think it is the long wating game that gives rise to most frustration. Wating for the plants to mature, the possible need to sow more seed from the supposed hybrid. It all takes emmense patience and time. Thanks for keeping this thread alive. What is the characteristic of Germaine's Gyration that you are so interested in duplicating? I actually find the name more exciting than the plant itself, but the fall color and larger wide-open dissected leaf are quite nice. In a technical situation, of which you have described yours is not at this time, would it matter what rootstock your shirasawanum and sieboldianum were grafted to?
Micheal, No real love for 'Germain's Gyration' other than the fact that it was in full male flower production mode when the other two seed parents were displaying their female flowers. I do like 'Germain's Gyration' and I think it does distinguish itself from the sea of other green dissectums out there. It is vigorous and kinda gnarly in its growth habit. I agree that the newer "hybrids" often fall short of their billing. I have a hard time distinguishing shir. 'Red Dawn' from atropurpureum palmatums. My guess is that those 'hybrids' were chance seedling below a shirasawanum or japonicum located near the assumed pollun donator-- it shared similar traits of the two and the founder guessed that it was a hybrid. Problem is, samaras have a great way of flying all over the place. Although my techniques were "crude", I would be 95% certain that if the progeny shared traits of the two parents, then the hybridization was a success. Here's why: 1. Yes it was very time consuming. I was dusting pollun nearly every day after work during the period of flower production. As new female flowers arose, I would dust them with pollon from the other tree. Japanese maples tend to produce flowers over a two week period or so in my area (new ones emerge each day), so it was a daily effort over that time until flower production ceased. Each flower cluster was probably dusted at least 2-3 times while it was mature. 2. These trees were located in a poly greenhouse amongst other very small 1-gallon to 3-gallon trees. My selection of host and donor trees was based primarily on the fact that they were the few trees actually flowering in the greenhouse. 3. Seeds were collected directly from the individual trees and bagged and labeled as such (ie. shirasawanum 'Areum' x palmatum 'Germain's Gyration'). No chance of other seeds finding their way into the mix. If I did end up with a dissected golden shirasawanum seedling, I would be pretty confident that it was a hybrid. As for naming the tree (in the very unlikely event that I find something worth introducing, as I feel the market is already saturated with marginal cultivars) I could definitely call the tree a shirasawanum, since I've collected the seeds directly from a shir. 'Aureum' and haven't mixed them up with other species. Whether or not an Acer x shirasawanum designation would be appropriate would depend on how confident I was that the morphology of the seedling represented features from both parents. Who knows what'll become of it. I share everyones opinion here that seedlings should be grown and enjoyed, but not named and introduced unless years of evaluation and comparison have been made. I think that color, form, habit, etc. are not the only important features, but the trees hardiness and ability to survive winters and summer heat need to be considered as well. I've planted several newer cultivars in my landscape which were beautiful and healthy, but looked like Charley Brown's christmas tree after the first winter. Final point, all of the trees in play were grafted onto palmatums, including the sieboldianum. I've sometimes wondered how a cultivar of palmatum might differ if it was grafted onto a buergerianum or seiboldianum. Might be a neat side-project (as if I need another one, with my pallet of palmatum pollun). :-). Brian
Hi, Last year I collected seed from a lot of palmatum cultivars from a public garden where cross ollination is inevitable. The seed collected from 'Bloodgood' and 'Oshio- Beni' which were in close prximity gave a very high germination rate with 50- 60% purple leaved. There was a huge range of variation in the width of the lobes, but none were as broad as 'Oshio- Beni' I think this confirms the views of Scion swapper. The seed collected from 'Dissectums' grouped together had poor germination less than 10%, but were cut leafed, whereas 'Dissectum' seed in the mixed garden location had a higher germination rate, but only about 30% with about 60% of these being cut leafed. Alex
