Interesting Fall Color For Silver Maple Seedlings!

[SilentMouse]

For the past week we've been getting some fair regular frosts so fall colors are getting on their way. Took some interesting photos of my silver maples seedling. Keep in mind, to my knowledge, the best color Silver Maples typically get is a kinda dull, muted yellow.



Like, what? NOT the colors I was expecting from what should defiantly be silver maples seedlings. Picked them off the ground under the tree myself this spring. I'm not mad though, they are gorgeous colors. Maybe it's just because they are so young, kinda like leaves are often shaped differently. Or maybe they were crossed with another kind of maple? If so, I'll be happy to see them keep these fall colors!

Dunno the point of this post other than to show off some pretty fall colors! Enjoy.

 

[DonovanC]

Looks like a red maple to me.

 

[DonovanC]

Silver maple:

 

[SilentMouse]

Looks like a red maple to me.

It does! I have a young red maple and these are the kind of colors the new growth looked all summer, and the color it's beginning to change for fall.

The thing is, again, I picked up these seeds myself and they were defiantly silver maple samaras (huge, almost the length of my finger) and had not the smaller red maple ones that have some red on them.

I'm betting if they keep this color next fall, they are hybrids of some sort. It's mostly silver maples around me, but there are some red ones in area and it could have been what is causing some of the weird but beautiful colors.

Edit: Yup! A tree exactly like the one in the pictures produced the seed these grew from .

 

[0soyoung]

The hybrid of saccharinum and rubrum is known as Freeman maple.

 

[SilentMouse]

The hybrid of saccharinum and rubrum is known as Freeman maple.

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Did not know ANYTHING about that! Thank you .

I'll have to wait to see how they grow next year and eventually color up again. But I would not be shocked if these seedlings end up looking like that and keeping that red color. Cause I've never seem a silver maple that goes any shade of red in fall like these.

 

[DonovanC]

Did not know ANYTHING about that! Thank you .

I'll have to wait to see how they grow next year and eventually color up again. But I would not be shocked if these seedlings end up looking like that and keeping that red color. Cause I've never seem a silver maple that goes any shade of red in fall like these.

I was reading about freeman’s maple earlier, and saw that it apparently doesn’t produce samaras. Also the leaf shape seems to lean more towards silver maple on freeman’s, but these definitely have a red maple shape to my eye. Perhaps a red maple seed made its way in.

 

[SilentMouse]

I was reading about freeman’s maple earlier, and saw that it apparently doesn’t produce samaras. Also the leaf shape seems to lean more towards silver maple on freeman’s, but these definitely have a red maple shape to my eye. Perhaps a red maple seed made its way in.

All eight that germinated from this trey are getting that orange-red color it seems, and all that was in there were the silver maple seeds. Didn't see any red maple samaras drop anywhere around there. But I do see you're point, they do look a LOT like red maples, have all summer and with this coloring in fall. It is their first growing season, so next year their leaves should look much more like they are supposed too. I'll be sure to check and update then .

My thought is a red maple pollinated the silver maple I got these from if they are indeed Freemans maples.

Kinda excited to see what these do next spring now, actually. Didn't plan on keeping them another entire year cause they were meant as practice simply caring for trees opposed to doing real bonsai work with them. Now I kinda wanna know what's up XD.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Definitely looks like red maple to me... i have both silver and red maples and these look like at least 2 of my 6 red maples. What does the bark look like on your seedlings?

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Looks like Amur maple, A ginnala

Amur maple (Acer ginnala)

www.dnr.state.mn.us

 

[SilentMouse]

Definitely looks like red maple to me... i have both silver and red maples and these look like at least 2 of my 6 red maples. What does the bark look like on your seedlings?

I have both as well- and I defiantly doubting they are just silver maples, or freeman maples (hybrid red and silver maples). They are just too young to tell at the moment. I can tell for sure they aren't just completely red maples. Saw them come from a silver maple seed with silver maple samaras. Very possible they are hybrids of some kind though. We'll see next fall when they color up again and I see if they keep this shade.

 

[Kanorin]

I have both as well- and I defiantly doubting they are just silver maples, or freeman maples (hybrid red and silver maples). They are just too young to tell at the moment. I can tell for sure they aren't just completely red maples. Saw them come from a silver maple seed with silver maple samaras. Very possible they are hybrids of some kind though. We'll see next fall when they color up again and I see if they keep this shade.

Probably a red maple or a hybrid red x silver. I have a few of each of these that I collected from seed this spring.