And if anyone's so inclined, here's another one, except that this one came from a nursery and should be a named cultivar of some kind.

Hi Guys

The Japanese Maple in Pictures 1 &2, could be "KATSURA"

The Japanese Maple in the other Pictures looks like a Species,a non cultivar although i'm not 100% certain of this ones ID.

I am sure Gardengal will Chime in on this one and offer her Usual sound advice

Happy Gardening

Stephen in the UK

As per usual a Comprehensive answer from Gardengal

IMO Gardengal is the best on the Forum for Japanese Maple Advice

If that Acer Palmatum in Pix 1 & 2 is a Seedling try and find some more and get them Potted up.

They look very nice and certainly wouldn't look out of place in any Japanese Maple Garden either grown in the Ground or as Containerized Examples like yours.Dont let the Tree become too big for the Pot.

Best wishes....

Thanks Gardengal, I could swear I've read that exact quote from Davidsan's. I just started growing a bunch of seedlings this year & I've been amazed so far at the variety there is in a batch of generics.

Stephen, much appreciated. Those Katsura's are really neat.

As a sidebar, the maple in the first two pics came from a green laceleaf tree that stands next to a red acer with really great features, so the running speculation is that it's a hybrid of the two, but I doubt there's any way to really verify. It's grown nearly two full feet this year and is still going. That, and the upright growth habit are probably indicators that it's going to be a large tree, correct?

Cheers!

It sorta looks like "coral pink." http://www.mendocinomaples.com/acer-palmatum/coral-pink

Nice observation Leslie..

There seems to be a few Variations of this Leaf Colouration.Infact in the Species probably 1000s.Seems to be a kind of "Theme & Variations" with many of these Leaf Colourways.I thought id looked similar to "Katsura"

As Gardengal has suggested this is a Species Acer Palmatum but no less Lovely for being so.

If that Seedling in Pix 1 & 2 is a result of the Green Laceleaf and the Red Acer you referred to Natures worked its magic and produced a Lovely Tree

Happy gardening

Stephen,Cheshire.UK

I have definitely noticed that many Japanese maples look alike...very much alike indeed! likely those many "thousands" of types are frequently similar genetic iterations over and over again. Who cares what it's called? You grow that pretty tree!

I've heard a number of theories on this one so far, both here and in person.

So far the most interesting has to do with the initial cultivar propagation, where a nursery takes a sport/mutant branch from an existing cultivar and propagates that as a new variety, leading to a lot of the really interesting ones we get today (i.e. Ukigumo was originally a sport off of a Butterfly that was especially pink)

Apparently seedlings from a particular cultivar frequently sprout reversions, or branches of the cultivar they were taken from, which need to be pruned away. My local nursery owner & buddy of mine sees the same thing happen with seedlings from these secondary cultivars, and speculated that this one might be similar to the one of the various original cultivars (since they're usually chains that lead back to the original Acer)

Its definitely a very cool tree.

sidebar, I'm always amazed at how much variety naturally occurs with these, just this year I started some generic seedlings and their leaf shapes are seriously all over the place.

Sophisticated Stuff Matt

That Seedling in the centre of the 1st Seed tray looks similar to the original 1st picture you posted on 17th July

The Seedlings look happy and that Potting Mix looks very good..

Happy Gardening

Stephen,Cheshire.UK