Wings of fire

My Japanese maple 'Fireglow' (or whatever it really is) has been very impressive this year. I wrote about it earlier this spring, but it's still spectacular. Not only has it finally filled out after five years in the ground, but it's producing seeds like crazy.

Just as the young leaves really capture the light and give 'Fireglow' its name, the winged seeds do too.

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I've always called maple seeds "helicopters" because of the way that the silver maple seeds twirl their way to the ground. The seeds on this tree most likely don't do any twirling, as they're at most six feet off the ground, so I hesitate to give them the same nickname.

Some seeds must have made it to the ground last year, because while weeding around the base of this tree recently I found a seedling!

Actually I found three of them by the time I was finished, so I carefully dug them up and put them into pots.

Each of them looks slightly different, which could be because of the amount of light each was receiving rather than genetic variation. I'll have to wait until they're larger before I can tell if there are any real differences.

I'm quite excited about this, and based on the much larger number of seeds on the tree this year, look forward to finding more seedlings next year too!

For now though I'm just enjoying these little wings of fire decorating an already beautiful tree.

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