No particular insight other than a good respectable reference, to wit...

Maples of the World by van Gelderen, de Jong, and Oterdoom (1994, Timber Press) has this good description and one photograph. It is a selection from Firma Esveld, which you may have heard of.

Here is a link that might be useful: Firma Esveld description of Acer pectinatum 'Alice'

Here is their description of this selection. In the text about the species, it mentions variable and rather crappy fall color.

Getting it inexpensively is exactly the way to try out one like this.

Perfect! Thanks VV :-)

The source (broken arrow nursery) I'm buying from lists them as rooted cuttings instead of grafted plants. Interesting...

Probably no reason not to root them, if they are easy enough to do that way and produce a decent root system. Eliminates future potential suckering issues.

Remember that the authors of the text are all European and have different traditions - and that the book is now 20 years young. Advances in propagation techniques have wrought different products today.

Broken Arrow is not a shabby place - I'd say that they'd be reliable.

Make sure you share pics of the crappy fall color...

Lol I'll make sure and do that! If I get it, I'll end up making a picture series topic about it throughout the growing season :-)

"Make sure you share pics of the crappy fall color..."

That's funny. What are some trees with crappy fall color that are worth having? I'll go with Maackia amurensis.

Even trees with a reputation for excellent fall color can be duds some years down here. So having a tree/shrub with poor fall color doesn't stick out like a sore thumb like it might up north. I am becoming more of a growing season foliage kinda person anyway since that is how the tree looks the majority of the growing season.

basic:

I'm with you - but it deserves it's own thread.

I don't know why I keep this loser (image) around. Greenish plaid is about the best it does come fall.

You'd think with 300+ years of trying, it could get it's act together. Wouldn't a JM look so much better here?

If I had a saw big enough...

My apologies to j0nd03 for veering off topic. Is that Oakey-Wan Kenobi standing next to that majestic Bur Oak?

Now that is one handsome fella, VV (the tree of course. I'm not qualified to judge the other :-P)

Basic, I'm not at all bothered by discussing lack of fall color in trees in this topic. After all, it squeezed that killer pic out of VV and any pic posted in the off season is a gift haha

Presumably the loser being kept around is the tree.