From my point of view the most important aspect of Japanese Maples is being able to talk about Maples. Only a fool goes it alone with Japanese Maples is how I can best describe how things generally play out. "Loners" do not seem to last long in Maples, either from the growing end or from the collecting end. I raise a breed of Pigeon named Modena for show and have had them for 42 years. What is real nice about Modenas is that while at a show all we talk about is Pigeons. Wives and girl friends get all frustrated with us as we can talk for hours on the phone about Modenas. The birds become more than an addiction. I've not come across such a widespread devout devotion to an animal or plant before and I am an old Livestock judge but the people that raise Pigeons are indeed a different breed of cat. There have been some nursery people with Maples that have come close to if not having the same feeling towards their plants. It just made them feel good to see their Maples in the ground at all times of the year. I know the blood pressure level would decrease when a person can just sit nearby a special Maple of theirs and let their mind wander to who knows where and just simply meditate. I know for me, no other plant can make me do that. I've been around others that would reminisce of their travels and their homeland in Japan while just gazing at a nice Maple of theirs. You can almost speculate where they are by their faces with their eyes open and sometimes closed and how peaceful they seem to be to the onlooker. Those people that I knew were principally purists in plants. You would not see a misnamed plant in their nurseries any where. It was dishonorable of them to even think of selling a plant or name a plant that was not right and some of them went to extra lengths to confirm their plant was what they felt it was before they could ever sell it. It was that kind of reasoning why Don Kleim and others would not sell certain Maples to anyone for many years and in many cases did not ever graft Maples all because of not being able to properly name their plants, even when what they were told what they were was in most cases correct. After the first few waves of imports from Japan there became a real and budding interest in Japanese Maples. It helped a great deal that Mr. Vertrees had such a strong interest in Oregon and through his varied travels met a lot of people that also has his passion for Maples. Don Kleim was the same way but did his travels abroad a few years before Mr. Vertrees did. Ensuing, many people in Oregon saw Mr. Vertrees Maples and wanted to have several of them. Who could blame them? I can trace the beginning of Maples on the West Coast back to the very early 60's when Don Kleim first imported in a few plants but Don already had some Maples, (I am referring mainly to Japanese Maples) and I was told that Mr. Vertrees also had some Maples then. What they must have gone through to obtain their Japanese Maples a way back is a mystery and it could not have been all that easy as there just could not have been many Maples around. We can read from our truly excellent books on Maples that some varieties have been around for 100 years, some for much longer than that but how many of those varieties were here in the US or Canada either? No one is really sure and with that I will go no further on that subject. When we learn about plants we see plants that originated from Japan with English surnames in nomenclature. I've often wondered what did the Japanese call them before they were officially named? Therein has caused many of the purists some real problems as I alluded to that in a previous thread called 'Perspective'. For a long time many of the Maples in various nurseries could be tracked or traced back to their originating home here in the US. If a person in Boring, Oregon, had an Aka Shigitatsu sawa you can pretty well bet that persons plant came from Mr. Vertrees. Even in the middle 80's what a nursery had for names of Maples could, within reason, be traced back to the nursery where that plant was first propagated here in the US. It was also in the late 70's but more so the 80's is when many people were growing seedlings hoping to find a plant that was different than what they had. Many of those people were quite pleased about having a plant that they thought was different and wanted to tell others of their new plant. The purists were receptive if the plant was indeed different and would advise them to grow the plant for a while and if the grafted plants would remain true to their parents then it might be worthy of naming. So the standard procedure was to wait about 5-7 years in most cases to monitor the plant and the grafted offspring and then when the time was right the plant might officially be named. It was during that time period that others caught on to the naming of the plants and it seemed to the Maples purists that anyone that produced a seedling that was different than what they had could not wait to name it, even though the plant may not be all that much different than what others had elsewhere. So, soon there became real problem for the purists in that they would learn through friends and elsewhere that this person or that person had a seedling that showed promise and was already named and that plant in some cases had not reached its third year of growth yet and was already being grafted. The people I knew had a real disdain for that as they felt that the people doing that were more interested in advancing themselves rather than the plant itself. Was it different enough to be named? Even though the people did not like what went on they still wanted to see the Maple just to know if it was worthy of being named in the first place. You do not want to know the comments I have heard in various discussions among the people I knew when they saw a newly named Maple for the first time. Usually a one word expletive was uttered by Don and then he would say, it is just a form of this Maple or that Maple and the parties involved would be disgusted by it all. These were people that had plants of their own, others that they brought in from elsewhere and waited for years to name them and in some cases did not name them but once they felt the nursery industry had become saturated with a host of newly named plants they would let go of a few of those plants but only if a fellow nurseryman saw them and wanted them. Even some of the nurserymen that bought those plants with tentative names at the nursery would later name them after a year or two and started out letting them to others that came to their nurseries and wanted to have them. It was through that process that Red Select was, unofficially, named as that was the nursery name on the tags that produced it and grew it on. Don's Big Red never was released for sale but its sister seedling was and you know it as Oshu beni. That is right, that one did not originate from Japan but originated and was grown in Fresno, California, so was the original plant that was later named in Oregon called Red Select. END of Part I
A quick note: I should not have to do this. One thing that may come in handy is to assume that I know something else that I did not mention. As for Oshu beni I believe, as I wrote the above from memory and this part also, there is mention in the 'Maples of the World' book that Oshu beni was originally referenced in a sales catalog. That is true. The original sales catalog was in the possession of Don Kleim whom had it translated by two people in Japan. The results of the translation yielded the plant mentioned in the catalog as being referenced was Oshio beni instead. After having a third person verify the translation from Kanji to English a copy was sent to Mr. Vertrees. The Maple was named by another person as Don gave him that plant(s) to get that Maple introduced into the nursery trade. Don officially only named one plant that I know of and it was an evergreen Clematis, C. armandii 'hendersoni rubra' and the plant was named after Bill Henderson. A show winning Camellia japonica had its origin at Henderson Experimental Gardens also without officially being named by Don. The other Maples that had originated at Don's nursery were given to others to name on purpose but Red Select was not so much that way as that one was named in Oregon without a prior arrangement having been made by the two parties. Don't ask me to go any further on Red Select as I will not do it in an open forum but yes, I know how it was named also. The word name has a very loose meaning in that sometimes a Maple was referred to as Red Select as the name itself was never official, at least by RHS standards or in some cases elsewhere. The nursery industry knew the Maple and that is all that was required for it to be sold for a while as Red Select until that Maple got mixed in with other Maples similar to it such as Ever Red, Oregon Garnet and Dissectum Nigrum. Jim
