Maple ID Help

[Gr8tfuldad]

Hi Everyone

I was hoping could help Id this JM. I collected seeds and was hoping to be able to narrow it down. Thanks for all your help.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Regardless of the parent cultivar, it’s seeds can only be named seedling Acer palmatum. Cultivars are propagated by grafts and cuttings, which is of no provenance if the stock cultivar is unknown. Nice looking tree though.

 

[Gr8tfuldad]

Regardless of the parent cultivar, it’s seeds can only be named seedling Acer palmatum. Cultivars are propagated by grafts and cuttings, which is of no provenance if the stock cultivar is unknown. Nice looking tree though.

I’ve read that before. If that is the case, how can vendors sell variety specific maple seeds?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I’ve read that before. If that is the case, how can vendors sell variety specific maple seeds?

They can sell the seeds with the parent cultivar in the description... it just doesn't mean the seedlings will be the same. Kinda like selling the colt from a successful race-horse. There is a chance the colt will inherit many of the traits of the parent... but maybe it will just be a farm horse. Regardless it will never be genetically identical.

JM cultivars (sold in a store) are clones of the parent. They are genetically identically. And in the case of JM, the genetic variability which creates so many interesting cultivars also makes it highly unlikely that a seedling will be exactly the same as the parent tree. This can also work to your advantage if you are looking for trees that have uniquely interesting characteristics. It is just a roll of the dice.

 

[penumbra]

They can sell the seeds with the parent cultivar in the description... it just doesn't mean the seedlings will be the same.

And they almost never are. Percentages are very low of plants from seed that look like their mother. You can get some great seedlings, but technically they are just Acer palmatum as Bonsai Nut has said.

 

[BrierPatch]

Is that still the case if you have seeds from an air layered JM of a specific cultivar?

@Gr8tfuldad I too collected hundreds of seeds from a very similar looking JM. Realizing it may not be the same, still fun to see what sprouts and comes of them.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Is that still the case if you have seeds from an air layered JM of a specific cultivar?

Yes. Seeds are seeds. They will be more or less genetically different from the parent tree(s). Some might look similar... but that is not the same thing as being the same.

Same means "clone". Cloning includes reproduction via cutting, graft, or air-layer.

It is important to note that we are talking cultivars here - not species. All Acer palmatum seedlings are still Acer palmatum. However if you take seeds from an Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' and plant them, the offspring all revert to just being generic Acer palmatum, and lose the Bloodgood cultivar distinction.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, think about it in reverse - in the creation of a cultivar. Let's say you have a field of 1 billion JM seedlings that are all different shapes, sizes and colors. One day you notice that a single seedling, in a freak recessive mutation, has blue leaves. You take that seedling out of the field, grow it until it is big enough to take scions, and start grafting tons and tons of JM with blue leaves. Eventually you have enough stock that you go through the process to register a new JM cultivar - in this case Acer palmatum 'Blue'. All of the plants you sell under this cultivar name are clones of the original plant. They all have blue leaves. However if you take one of those trees and put it in landscape, and it starts reproducing, and you gather up the seeds and plant them, there is no guarantee that a single one of those seedlings will have blue leaves, and even if they did they might be lighter or darker, or different in some other way from the parent. So there is no way you can sell the seedlings as Acer palmatum 'Blue', and though it is technically accurate to say "these seeds came from an Acer palmatum 'Blue'"... it is meaningless from a cultivar standpoint. The seedlings are all just "Acer palmatum".

 

[penumbra]

Is that still the case if you have seeds from an air layered JM of a specific cultivar?

If it is from a seed it is Acer palmatum technically, but you can get anything. This is where cultivars come from.

Was typing at same time as Bonsai Nut.

 

[Gr8tfuldad]

Thank you everyone for clarifying. It is crystal clear now. Some vendors should evaluate the way they present their product I’m in no way upset, I like the thrill of the ride

 

[Lorax7]

I’ve read that before. If that is the case, how can vendors sell variety specific maple seeds?

Reputable vendors don't label their seeds with a cultivar name. There are a lot of fraudsters on online retail platforms that permit third parties to sell through the platform. Those fraudsters sell ordinary Acer palmatum seeds as named cultivar seeds or as "bonsai seeds" or as seeds for some sort of "rare" variant of the plant with absurdly colored foliage that doesn't actually exist and they put a photoshopped picture in the listing to sell to unsuspecting folks who don't know enough about the plant to know that they're effectively being sold magic beans like in the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale. I think these disreputable vendors do it so they can charge more than people would otherwise pay if they knew that the seeds were just ordinary Acer palmatum seeds. They're counting on the reality that most newbie gardeners will just blame themselves if the seeds fail to germinate and, if the seeds germinate and produce a plant that looks nothing like what was advertised, most people still won't bother with the hassle of a doing a product return for an item under $10. Here's an example of a disreputable third party vendor selling "Bonsai Maple Tree Seeds" and using a stolen photo of one of Walter Pall's bonsai trees that they've photoshopped to have absurd purple foliage that doesn't exist in nature and certainly doesn't exist on Walter's tree.

 

[Gr8tfuldad]

Reputable vendors don't label their seeds with a cultivar name. There are a lot of fraudsters on online retail platforms that permit third parties to sell through the platform. Those fraudsters sell ordinary Acer palmatum seeds as named cultivar seeds or as "bonsai seeds" or as seeds for some sort of "rare" variant of the plant with absurdly colored foliage that doesn't actually exist and they put a photoshopped picture in the listing to sell to unsuspecting folks who don't know enough about the plant to know that they're effectively being sold magic beans like in the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale. I think these disreputable vendors do it so they can charge more than people would otherwise pay if they knew that the seeds were just ordinary Acer palmatum seeds. They're counting on the reality that most newbie gardeners will just blame themselves if the seeds fail to germinate and, if the seeds germinate and produce a plant that looks nothing like what was advertised, most people still won't bother with the hassle of a doing a product return for an item under $10. Here's an example of a disreputable third party vendor selling "Bonsai Maple Tree Seeds" and using a stolen photo of one of Walter Pall's bonsai trees that they've photoshopped to have absurd purple foliage that doesn't exist in nature and certainly doesn't exist on Walter's tree.

View attachment 409020

Fortunately, I didn’t fall victim to a purple bonsai tree seed. Although I have chosen to roll the dice for $3.50. Given the law of probabilities, I am almost guaranteed an Acer Palmatum. Live an learn…

https://etsy.me/3ClZCn5

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Reputable vendors don't label their seeds with a cultivar name. There are a lot of fraudsters on online retail platforms that permit third parties to sell through the platform. Those fraudsters sell ordinary Acer palmatum seeds as named cultivar seeds or as "bonsai seeds" or as seeds for some sort of "rare" variant of the plant with absurdly colored foliage that doesn't actually exist and they put a photoshopped picture in the listing to sell to unsuspecting folks who don't know enough about the plant to know that they're effectively being sold magic beans like in the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale. I think these disreputable vendors do it so they can charge more than people would otherwise pay if they knew that the seeds were just ordinary Acer palmatum seeds. They're counting on the reality that most newbie gardeners will just blame themselves if the seeds fail to germinate and, if the seeds germinate and produce a plant that looks nothing like what was advertised, most people still won't bother with the hassle of a doing a product return for an item under $10. Here's an example of a disreputable third party vendor selling "Bonsai Maple Tree Seeds" and using a stolen photo of one of Walter Pall's bonsai trees that they've photoshopped to have absurd purple foliage that doesn't exist in nature and certainly doesn't exist on Walter's tree.

View attachment 409020

Ive seen scams a lot worse than that