Hi all, I've recently become increasingly obsessed with maples, but sadly live in zone 2, where the only thing we have going for us is Acer negundo. We have a local arboretum where there are a few more interesting species that are limping along. I spotted this little specimen of what's labeled as acer truncatum, and was enamored by the leaf colour. I'm curious whether this is standard for this species or not. I've also noticed that some images of acer truncatum posted online have a smooth 5 toothed leaf, whereas this plant has very attractive and interesting leaf geometry! I've sourced some seed and I'm excited to try this tree on the prairies!
That's a pretty one! They do hybridize with platanoides sometimes. There are a few spikey leaved cultivars out there (Dragon series, IIRC). Have you tried any of the A. tataricum ssp in Zone 2? I think they're pretty tough. I wonder if A. mandshuricum might make it, too.
It must be : I got seeds from an online provider, and my seedlings look a lot like yours. March 2021 : October 2022 : June 2023 : The red margins on the new leaves are its best feature. I only have potted ones : I kept three, two of them as bonsai-to-be. I wish I could see a mature tree throughout the seasons... E-, do you have one?
Yes, we have a large one in the ground, but the leaves are not spikey. Some years ago Adele brought seed back from a tree in a Beijing park; two of them grew into decent sized plants. They had more interesting margins then the large one, but not as indented as some you and @Calvin_yxe show. One died a few years back, the other froze in 2021 and baked in 2022; I thought it would live, but it never leafed out this year. A real shame, it was a pretty plant and about 2m tall, in ground. From experience, I'd not rule out hybrid seed unless it comes from China, where hopefully there aren't too many Norway maples around, haha! And of course, young leaves are always much more likely to be strongly lobed/indented than mature trees.
Hi Emery, Interesting : I checked the range of the "Shantung maple" on one of my favourite site, probably the best documented, most reliable in French, and the leaves photographed are quite different from mine and Calvin's : http://jeanlouis.helardot.free.fr/page_erables/acer_truncatum.htm Another reliable source for pictures of Acer leaves. Select : .9 Acer (Sapindaceae) then : .200 Acer truncatum https://www.arboretumwespelaar.be/E...lustrations/List_of_illustrated_taxa/#alfabet
Just a little genetic background re hybrids and non-typical forms: In its native range, A. truncatum forms a hybrid zone with the local variants of A. mono (A. pictum in Japan), van Gelderen in the Maples of the World joined them into one large, polymorphic species; genetically the three species are near-indistinguishable but can show quite a morphological variation. The Norway maple, A. platanoides, is (evolutionary speaking) their sister as seen e.g. in this graph. Together, Norway maple and its Asian siblings (A. mono and allies) are the most frost-/snow-tolerant lineage of section Platanoidea; this section is a maple lineage that never reached N. America, but they do have a distant sister there: A. macrophyllum, very beautiful, majestic trees but not as hardy. Ecologically, in North America, the corresponding niche is occupied by a most distant cousin, A. spicatum, the "mountain maple"; which, coincidentally is the German name for A. platanoides (Bergahorn). A related tip for non-scientists: to check the natural distribution of a maple species, you can give GBIF a look. It's the publicly accessible database for plant species, collecting records from our herbaria but also personal observation/introduced, and the maples are pretty well covered. I.e. they can show you wether a species you buy/plant already thrives in your (larger, but note that you can zoom in) area. Here's the map for A. truncatum: https://www.gbif.org/species/7263012 The yellow area represent the natural distribution in N.E. Asia, those in Europe and N. America introduced ones. For comparison, GBIF plot for probably the hardiest of all N. American maples, A. spicatum
Wow! I am constantly impressed by the depth of knowledge and experience on this forum! To give a sense of what survives here in good ol' USDA zone2b/Canadian zone 3b/Koppen BSk, the arboretum had mandshuricum, triflorum, truncatum, glabrum, saccharum, saccharum var. nigrum, and pensylvanicum, all uncommon trees here. They weren't large trees (or even shrubs) by any stretch, but have at least survived the winter. Around the city, I've observed 3 specimens acer pseudosieboldianum, and have also heard reports of people on Saskatchewan gardening groups showing acer grandidentatum. Of course, A. tataricum/ginnala/negundo are ubiquitous and common. I've ordered seed from a few of these species to try here. I'm hoping with a little babying and a touch of global warming, I might at least get some small shrubs from them that I can shape. @AlainK - those look stunning. Curious where you got your seed - I just ordered some seed from Sheffields recently and hoping I get the same colouring. I've contacted the arboretum groundskeeper who apparently is quite the guru in borderline hardy trees for our harsh climate. @grimmiges - thanks for that excellent information!! I usually use inaturalist to find plants that grow in the Amur valley/Mongolia/Siberia/North Korea, so this is a welcome additional resource.
Hi Calvin, I got them from a very reliable seed provider in France - where I live. https://www.semencesdupuy.com/6-feuillus?q=Catégories-Acer+(Érable)&page=5 I doubt they can ship to Canada, but you can always ask them, there must be someone able to reply in English, or you can use an online translator : https://www.semencesdupuy.com/nous-contacter In case you're really interested in a species they offer, I can order them for me, then ship them to Canada : if they don't pass the customs, no worries for such a small price. Alain
Naturally. It's from our 2014 paper, original PDF can be found here. For a full assessment across the genus and according graph with a relatively decent species sample see our 2006 paper (still worth a read and open access). In general, the region we used back in the days, the ITS region of the nuclear-encoded 35S rDNA, is highly specific for all maples that have been studied (but being elaborate to do, no-one really picked up where we had to stop). Effectively, you can identify far the most if not all good maple species by their ITS signatures. But it probably won't work for cultivars (too little time) and for varieties/provenances within a species. The plastid signatures are very interesting as well, as they are geographically strongly constrained. Most North Americans have much different plastomes than those of Eurasia, with two notable exceptions: A. circinatum of section Palmata and A. pensylvanicum of section Macrantha. Both are the only species of otherwise purely East Asian (today) sections. For the latest phylogenomic results, which to a large degree confirmed our results from the zeroes both regarding the nucleome and the plastome (all maple sections can be genetically unambiguously identified by unique combinations of nucleome and plastome signatures) but avoided to address the giant mammoth in the room (the mothers and fathers of modern-day maple sections were not necessarily from the same stock; it's a most interesting genus at every taxonomic level); you may take a look at the first twos part of my miniseries Big data = No Brain? Pt. 1: Complete plastomes vs. 5000 nuclear genes Pt. 2: Digging deeper Unfortunately, despite being one of the most interesting tree genera of the Northern Hemisphere in very much every aspect (only the oaks can compete with it regarding interesting patterns within species and up to the genus level), it has been largely ignored by us professional botanical scientists. The recent phylogenomic papers have all been authored by people who have (based on what you can read in these papers) either very little idea what they were working with or no interest at all to make this genus accessible to a broader public. It's really a shame, because there would be so many applications outside fundamental science, if the systematic-botany/phylogeny people would give it a proper effort. Especially also regarding the native N. American species, we probably have more species in North America than we typically distinguish based on morphology alone thinking of things like the taxa included in A. saccharum in the Flora of North America but also potentially hidden, "cryptic" or "pseudocryptic" species in A. negundo or A. glabrum, both of which represent very ancient evolutionary lineages.
I think Acer series saccharodendron and series monspessulana are closely related, their morpholigical characteristics are very similar, like flowering and fruiting
isnt acer macrophyllum more closely related to acer diabolicum and other species of sect lithocarpa? I dont see any resemblance between Acer macrophyllum and acer platanoides.
