nord Vietnam maple grown by seeds http://www.crug-farm.co.uk/acer_heptaphlebium_bswj11713-69.aspx?showsignin=1 new leaves deep purple, very nice fall colors
Hi Alex! Great tree, wish I had one! :) According to MOW p. 128, Acer heptaphlebium Gagnepain (1948) is a synonym for Acer campbellii ssp flabellatum. I also find this at the plant list: http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-2615713 so I believe campbellii flabellatum is the accepted name. Flora of China has returned A. flabellatum to status of a separate species, so perhaps it would be best to refer to this plant that way as this change is likely to be accepted in future. cheers, -E
http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=75570&highlight=Acer+heptaphlebium another thread :) another reply please!
Hi Alex, I had seen the second thread here. I still think campbelli ssp flabellatum is the accepted name, with the possibility that it has been superseded by Flora of China. We may question Murray's bonafides, but the fact is that every classification references him. From FoC: 27. Acer flabellatum Rehder in Sargent, Trees & Shrubs. 1: 161. 1905. 扇叶枫 shan ye feng Acer campbellii J. D. Hooker & Thomson ex Hiern subsp. flabellatum (Rehder) A. E. Murray; A. campbellii var. yunnanense Rehder; A. flabellatum var. yunnanense (Rehder) W. P. Fang; A. gracile W. P. Fang & M. Y. Fang (1966), not Saporta (1867); A. mapienense W. P. Fang; A. shangszeense W. P. Fang & T. P. Soong; A. shangszeense var. anfuense W. P. Fang & T. P. Soong. from MOW: Acer Campbellii ssp falbellatum (Tehder) Murray (1977) Basuinym A. flabellatum Rehder (1905) Synonyms: A. campbelli [sic] ssp heptaphlebium (Gagnepain) A. heptalobum Diels (1931) Kew et al: Acer heptaphlebium Gagnep. is a synonym of Acer campbellii subsp. flabellatum (Rehder) A.E.Murray This name is a synonym of Acer campbellii subsp. flabellatum (Rehder) A.E.Murray. The record derives from WCSP (in review) (data supplied on 2012-03-26) which reports it as a synonym with original publication details: Notul. Syst. (Paris) 13: 194 1948. The reference is of course A.E. Murray's Kalmia! I'm willing to line up with, say, Japanese botanists over the naming of their endemic maples, or Chinese botanists in FoC if they refute Murray, but that doesn't seem to be exactly the case here. This is a very confused area, which FoC is trying to clean up presumably; I find referring to this as heptophlebium as confusing to say the least... It also looks to me that the IPNI reference has a date of 1960, am I misreading? None of which detracts from your very pretty maple, luckily! :)
The IPNI record is here, indicating 1948 publication (not 1960). It is described from Indochina, and (given the lack of any reference from the Flora of China even as a synonym) presumably hasn't been claimed from China. Can't find anything for Vietnam, but the Checklist of the Flora of Laos (produced by RBG Edinburgh) accepts Acer heptaphlebium as a distinct species.
Thanks Michael, I was looking at the date range of the of the entire publication. 1948 indeed. That means it doesn't take into account any classification post-Pojárkova; not Fang, nor Ogata, nor de Jong (1976 or 1994). The Edinburgh document appears in error since it attributes A. heptaphlebium to Diels, not Gagnepain. In any case one of Flora of Laos or MOW is incorrect. Or perhaps the RBG Edinburgh plant is really A. heptalobum (Diels), if I were to stagger far out on a limb... :) In the entry for campbellii ssp flabellatum MOW states: "Recent biochemical research has shown that A. campbellii and its subspecies are possibly the same. They differ only morphologically and perhaps should be merged into one grex species." FoC states under flabellatum: "One of us (Oterdoom) believes that this taxon is a young form of Acer campbellii because of its identical chemical structure." Since Oterdoom is an Author of MOW also it seems reasonably clear that the two sources are referencing the same species and that the synonymy with heptaphlebium proposed in MOW has been tacitly accepted in FoC.
Well, I always feel it's important not to get too religious about taxonomical arguments, so I will take my own advice now. ;) I think my arguments are pretty clearly laid out and make a good case for the accepted name being different than the thread title. In the sense that it's possible to find references to older names throughout the literature, I don't feel that the inclusion of heptaphlebium in the Red List, not primarily a taxonomical document, or at the very least not a document with vocation to resolve taxonomical difficulties, makes a great deal of difference. In any case if my arguments were not convincing then my view will remain in the minority on this board if not elsewhere. However I would think it necessary for the list of maples with photos here to accept a common classification. Perhaps it would be useful to determine whether the UBC and hence this forum accepts the MOW/de Jong classification and by association Flora of China where it updates MOW. I'd be interested in knowing the official position on that. FoC, by the way, does refer the A. flabellatum as endemic also in Vietnam, Myanmar. It really doesn't seem possible that we are talking about distinct species. Que sera, sera! :)
For me the point is that it is not proven we are talking about the same maple. If flora of China included it as a synonym, then that would lend weight to that view, but it does not. Maybe they used to think heptaphlebium was a synonym and later came to think it was actually a separate species known only in Laos and Vietnam? I don't know. The interesting thing about the Red List reference is that it says Acer heptaphlebium "needs further study to establish its conservation status". Perhaps "taxanomic status" is also implied? The plant Alex pictured was grown from seed wild collected in Vietnam, identified by the collector as Acer heptaphlebium. That is about all that can be said for sure about it at this time.
Flora of China has updated the MOW/de Jong classification in this case by removing the reference to heptaphlebium as a synonym. I do not know if this was an oversight or a deliberate act.
i have two heptaphlebium the leaves are similar the source is Crug farm.two years ago i known Roy Lancaster in one conference if return in Italy i ask to Mr.president!:)
Hi Alex, just following this up now as I glanced through this discussion, and have the symposium proceedings spellcheck pdf (which printed copy you will receive very shortly) open on another screen. In them Dan Crowley, our expert on Vietnamese Maples, has put these collections under Acer aff. campbellii, based on morphology and range (heptaphlebium "has never been recorded in the Hoang Lien Mountains", rather the range is in the southern part of the country. So Dan confirms that for him, A. heptaphlebium is distinct, but that the Crug collections look to be aff. campbellii. This is a great article, among others, and really sheds light on some of the Vietnamese morass. cheers, -E
