Closer view of leaves.

Good looking tree. Japanese maples are nearly impossible to identify IMO thiugh, haha.

I'll second that!! Even the "experts" have trouble differentiating between many cultivars as the differences can be extremely subtle.

If sold tagless at a farmer's market, this could well be a JM seedling, in which case there is no cultivar name. Named cultivars are never seed grown, only propagated asexually. It has some of the similarities of a 'Sango Kaku' or coral bark maple but there are several clones that offer these features and I would not care to be pinned down to that!!

I suppose there is always one original named cultivar right? In other words, somewhere - is the original bloodgod or crimson queen, lol.

Very interesting. I thought there was a big book or more reasonably a database somewhere with all the named cultivars. There is no graft so unless it was air grafted a seedling makes sense. Now I do understand that a seedling is a shot in the dark. However , Can the seed produce a named cultiver? If not, would that make my tree unique? Following that logic i would then have a new and rare cultivar. Could I then call it A palmatum 'qwades logic'. I guess my questions is: How are cultivars named. Are they registered like orchids? Or are they a nurserys patent name? Please explain

No, seeds cannot produce a named cultivar. A seedling Japanese maple, regardless of parentage, will always be just a generic Acer palmatum. And it is highly unlikely that a seedling would produce anything that would be considered "unique". Some named forms may well have started out as a seedling but that would be just a handful or so out of many hundreds of thousands. The vast majority of registered cultivars were discovered as sports or brooms on a specific tree and developed from that.

Yes, cultivars of JM's are registered. And each new cultivar will have one or more characteristic that sets it apart from all others. And since the only way to ensure that these sets of characteristics remain unchanged and specific to that particular cultivar is by clonal reproduction/asexual propagation, i.e. grafting.

Of course there is always an "original" cultivar.......or there was. It is cuttings from these originals (or known descendants) grafted to generic Acer palmatum root stock that we find in nurseries as named cultivars. Or usually. There are some less than honorable growers that do pass off seedling trees as named forms. 'Bloodgood' is one that is frequently on the market in a seedling form and should be questioned to its veracity if no graft readily visible.

Some JM's are patented as well. Emperor 1 and Shirazz are both trademarked names for patented cultivars of JM. All this means is these cultivars are not legally allowed to be propagated by anyone without licensing permission by the patent holder.

What do you mean by sports or brooms?

Thanks Gal
I guess my tree is just a runt. I was thinking it was some kind of coral bark but the red wasn't as pronounced even for summer.Still a nice looking tree,Good information. Makes more sense than my logic.

Jalcon
Sport and brooms are mutations of a branch of a tree.
Brooms, or Witches brooms, which you may have seen on a coniferous tree are mutations that look like the end of a broom and usually of a dwarfed form. Sports refer to mutations that change the color or characteristics of the leaves of a branch of a tree.

LOL!! Some of the nicest JM's are seedling grown so not at all sure I'd term it a "runt". It does have characteristics that lend towards a coral bark so maybe a 'Sango Kaku' was the seedling parent?? Many of the seedlings from any given cultivar will bear a strong resemblance to the parent even though cannot legally be referred to as such..........that's how those unscrupulous Bloodgood sellers get away with it :-))