Thank you for sharing
@William N. Valavanis
I can assure you that it was NOT developed by “hedge pruning”! Lol!!!
Haha definitely!!
What caught my attention was the transition from white to green bark (and less so but also the scar just below it). I thought that the discrepancy in color might be discrepancy in age, so it seemed to me like the Oto Hime upper trunk was not grafted onto the lower trunk by an ordinary maple nursery (since this would have been done when the components were 2-3 years old as usual, and wouldn't account for the age gap that i was imagining! LOL) But it turns out that the graft goes back to at least 1986, to my surprise!
I was initially wondering if Bill 'ebihara'ed' the upper Oto Hime part on the lower at some point? Or (given the scar on the front) whether this was a very tall tree at some point, and Oto Hime was eventually scion/thread grafted onto that tall trunk, and then the tall trunk removed (...but that scar on the front is so beautifully healed, it must be very old!)
what also caught me eye was the well developed low-right branch, which must be the same cultivar as the upper part of the tree, but occurs
below the graft line. sure it was grafted, but the timing of that graft is what interested me. This branch must not have been there when Julian bought the tree in 1986 (if it came from an ordinary maple nursery, since they don't normally 'waste' their time like that), but the branch must have been added by him with great foresight. brilliant!
all in all the tree is a bit of a puzzle, but an exceptionally beautiful one that must have been developed with techniques that interest me a lot
I wish i knew what happened before 2011 LOL but the mystery is fun to think about