As one major grower of JM's states on their website: "There are things that are absolute in life such as death and taxes. Unfortunately being able to visually identify a specific Japanese maple cultivar with 100% certainty isn't one of them!"

There are more than a 1000 registered cultivars of JM's which contributes to the complication of this process, not to mention some of them offer such subtle differences as to be virtually impossible to differentiate unless an expert.......and even they have a very hard time. Chances are very good that this is just a species JM and if you are unable to discern any sign of a graft, that chance escalates to near 100%. All named forms/cultivars of Japanese maples must be grafted or otherwise propagated asexually - any seed grown JM will just be a form of the species. No cultivar name.