Try this link:

Here is a link that might be useful: is this sango kaku?

Usually more vase-like and less orange in autumn. How red are the twigs, coralbark maple has gleaming red ones that almost look artificial.

This is not my tree...I wish it was. I found it in home and garden webshots. The photo was taken by Ron

If you magnify the photo, there appears to be a lot of golden leaves. But on a second thought, there are no red twigs which is commonly found in sango kaku.

BTW how many orange and gold japanese maples out there? Not many is it?

I don't think that the red is so noticable on older trees since it's only on very new growth and with an older tree that can be very little ( growth that is)...so I wouldn't necessaruily go by that...That being said the old adage will always hold... you most likely cannot with any certainty identify any JM. David

I agree with David, I'm not sure that you can identify a JM unless you have about 10 pictures of habit, color, leaf shape, petioles, samaras etc.

However, I would say that it is common to see the color of a 'sango kaku' have those colors in the right conditions. Usually a bit more yellow than that, but I've seen pictures of 'sango kaku' with that orangish color.

On to your other question, yes there are many yellow and orange fall colored cultivars out there. Most of them, however, have a range of colors with bits of red mixed in. 'Golden Pond', 'Hogyoku' and 'kihachijo' are just a few cultivars that usually have yellows and oranges in the fall.

Of course 'katsura' and 'aka ne' both have that color in the spring (and with less brightness in the fall).

'Fjellheim' is a witches broom of 'sango kaku' that has more orange in the color of the spring and fall color IMO.

Considering there are about a thousand cultivars, I'd say at least 25 percent of them have that yellow orange fall color. This is just a rough estimate though.

I'm going to disagree on the coloring of Sango Kaku - even very mature trees will have very pronounced red coloring on the outer branches and stems and this feature is intensified in cold weather. It is only the oldest wood that loses color, beginning from the ground up, so that the trunk and then the largest scaffold branches fade and take on a green-brown color from the inside out. With a well-developed canopy, this loss of color on the oldest wood is hardly noticeable and the branching appears uniformly red. My 15+ y.o. SK fairly glows in winter and is highly visible from a good distance.

I'd also agree that the fall color of the tree in the photo is quite a bit more intense than the color SK typically develops - especially that pinky-orange on the outside leaves. But the color reproduced in most amateur photographs is seldom totally accurate. A golden yellow with some peachy-apricot overtones is more usual, but fall color can be influenced by a number of factors and IS variable so it's possible. In my climate, which normally produces great fall color on JM's, the yellow gold for SK is typical.

And yes, there are scores of JM cultivars that will produce orange-gold fall coloring.

I have another question:

My sango kaku is growing in a pot. Why does it scrotch easily in full sun compare to my neighbor's sango kaku tree that is grwoing in the ground?

Drought stress.