On page 156 of "Maples for garden", Acer palmatum Muro Gawa is said to belong to group 3a (green matsumurae) but Vertrees places it in the Palmatum group. When I look at the pictures here : http://www.esveld.nl/htmldia/a/ex/acpmur.htm there is 3 pics and the third one is very different from the 2 first. It seems that there is an "English" 'Muro gawa' as well as an "American" 'Muro gawa' . Unfortunately the Japanese reference book by Yano does not mention 'Muro gawa' so it is difficult to make out which of the two is correct. Does anybody has an idea ? Thank you
First let's get the common name spelling down. It is Murogawa - one word. The third edition Japanese Maples book is Vertrees/Gregory and was not solely written by Mr. Vertrees as some of the content was indeed added in after J.D. had been deceased. Mr. Vertrees and leading others in Japan spelled the name Murogawa. If we are to use Mr. Vertrees manuscript as a basis then we should follow the spelling convention that was supplied for him by a consortium of people in Japan and in the US. If the Europeans and some people in Japan choose to be different then they owe us an explanation as to why they choose to make up their own common name spellings of a host of Maples that originally came to them from venerable sources in Japan. Not all of the photos in the Esveld web site are right for the Maple as shown. That is more due to them trying to provide a whole lot of photos of Maples and some photos can get intermixed in the wrong Maple heading. In the past we called that "growing pains" online. Trying to do too much all at once and we can make some mistakes every now and then. I thought Murogawa is an amoenum. Jim
In fact, I have sent an email to Cor Van Gelderen (the author of "Maples for garden") and he is the one who gave me these information about the english and american "murogawa". That's why they have post the 2 types of pictures on their website. What reference make you think Murogawa is an amoenum ?
Here is a quick reference to Murogawa as being an amoenum http://ganshuku.cool.ne.jp/23_3engei_m.html Let me direct you to page 292 of the Maples of the World book, my edition must be the 1995 reprinted version and what do we see but Murogawa listed as one word. The description as stated in the book is accurate for the Maple I know. Jim