Help Identify this tree

grizzlywon

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This seedling came up in the middle of my Trident maple seedbed last year. I assumed it was a Trident with really cool leaves, but when it didn't drop its leaves all year I realized it was a different breed all together. The trunk is light gray like a trident but the growing greenwood is red.

Thanks in advance.
 

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Smoke

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This seedling came up in the middle of my Trident maple seedbed last year. I assumed it was a Trident with really cool leaves, but when it didn't drop its leaves all year I realized it was a different breed all together. The trunk is light gray like a trident but the growing greenwood is red.

Thanks in advance.

Are these the seeds from Fresno State. That leaf looks like the original root stock trident maple.
 

garywood

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I can't tell from the photo but it looks like an alternate budded vs an opposite like maples. Another shot of the structure would help. Wood
 

Smoke

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The seeds are from Fresno City College. That would be cool if it is a trident. One of a kind?

Yea sorry City College. That tree is very old. Probably around 75 to 100 years. That form of trident was very common 75 years ago being what tridents from China looked like. The Naruto Kaede has that similer feature with the elongated "middle finger" though with the leaf curling, (it's supposed to be like that) makes it seem shorter. It's never been a popular tree for bonsai since it always looks fried by the sun.

Selective breeding has made tridents prettier and more hardy. I don't think you have anything rare, just a sprout that resorted to it's roots.
 

R_F

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I assumed it was a Trident with really cool leaves, but when it didn't drop its leaves all year I realized it was a different breed all together.

Excuse my ignorance, but I'm really curious, if it's a trident like Al stated, why hasn't it dropped it's leaves? Al, thanks for the history on this by the way. I had no idea that tridents even had a different look in their recent ancestry.
 

Smoke

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Excuse my ignorance, but I'm really curious, if it's a trident like Al stated, why hasn't it dropped it's leaves? Al, thanks for the history on this by the way. I had no idea that tridents even had a different look in their recent ancestry.

I have about 45 tridents in all states of growth. Some that I use for cutting stock and graft stock and thread graft stock is under a thicket of trees on my fence line. It is totally covered by trees and trees started by birds, many privits and stuff like that. There are tridents in there so insulated from the cold as well as having fairly mild winters that tridents will just keep growing year round.

I have to move them out into the yard to get some cold to induce dormancy. I also have a hard time getting really good fall color on my maples because of this. Even the shade cloth is protection enough for me to keep leaves well into January.

The palmatums always lose their leave fairly early though.


It might also be that the tree in question from Brett in not a maple at all. Could be some ivy for all we know. I have not seen it close up enough.
 
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