I’ve found a few maple seedlings in my yard, especially lately, and I’ve put them in pots so I can raise them in a protected place until they’re big enough to plant in the yard.
This one I’ve had since last summer or fall. I’m not even 100% sure it’s a maple, but I’d like to find out what it is. Perhaps I can get someone on GardenWeb to identify it for me.
Last week, I dug up about five of these from my shrub bed over by the nectarine tree. They all look like the same species (definitely maples), and I was wondering where they came from. Then, I had this vague recollection that just MAYBE I threw some leftover Bigtooth maple seeds over there after I couldn’t get them to germinate in my basement. But I’m not sure I did. I say Bigtooth maple, because the leaves look different than my Rocky Mountain maple that I grew from seed, which is now about four feet tall. I gathered a bunch of maple seeds up in American Fork Canyon, and I’m sure some of them were Bigtooth and some were Rocky Mountain.
I threw away the box elder tree this weekend, but I’ll keep the little Ribes or whatever those other ones are. Maybe when they get bigger, it’ll be clearer what they are, and perhaps I’ll post a followup message in the GardenWeb shrub forum if they really look like shrubs.
A reply on GardenWeb says that the top one is a Box Elder! Bummer. I didn’t realize Box Elders are actually part of the maple family (it’s Acer negundo).
He also thinks the lower photo isn’t a maple at all. He said it’s a Ribes species, which can be currants or gooseberry shrubs. That’s the same family as my Alpine Currant shrubs. But I’m not convinced so far that it’s actually Ribes. The leaves seem more deeply cut and sharp cornered than the photos I saw of Ribes online.