Help Please Identify This Maple

[AppleBonsai]

Hey fellow B Nutters! I have had this little guy for 10 years or so- I got it from an auction and I love it, but I have never seen another one like it! It looks like an AMUR of some sort, but I have never been able to ID it because this guy's trunk/bark is SO different. The trunk looks like the Michelin Man; very light gray/white and squatty fat lumps. It's leaves do emerge as red here in January, then turn this color green as seen in the pic. And yeah, I have had it for 10 years here in sunny No Cal, with fertilizer in well-drained soil and this is it's full height! I can safely say, it is the slowest growing plant out of the 50+ species I have. It's only about 8 inches (a true 8 inches guys- not a 6, you are trying to sell as an 8) Luckily you don't have to know the exact species in order to grow them! Many thanks in advance!

 

[Smoke]

Amur, it has fat squatty lumps because wire has been left to cut in. The bark turns white because the sun bleaches it. Guys back east have to put lime sulpher to do this but it does it naturally in CA.

 

[AppleBonsai]

Damn you Smoke for being so succinct! Have you seen one with a weird ass trunk like this though?

 

[M. Frary]

The leaves say it Amur. The trunk says something else entirely. Like " don't take the brown acid man".

 

[AppleBonsai]

Amur, it has fat squatty lumps because wire has been left to cut in. The bark turns white because the sun bleaches it. Guys back east have to put lime sulpher to do this but it does it naturally in CA.

Thanks for that Smoke,

The only problem with that theory is I have had it since it was about 4 inches tall and this was the first year I have put any wire on it and the trunk was relatively straight when I got it and it ust keeps getting more and more pronounced "squattyness" I have not done any wiring on the trunk ever. Any other guesses? Much appreciated all! BTW I tried to propagate it last year with a few cuttings and FAIL! lol

 

[AppleBonsai]

Smoke, if you look at the branches on the left side of the pic, this is what the trunk looked like when I got it. Straight with no movement- Like a bad first date!

 

[Smoke]

Have you taken it to a nursery and compared it to a flowering maple, which is not a maple at all. The leaves look exactly the same which would account for the slow growth and weird trunk.

 

[Smoke]

Straight with no movement- Like a bad first date!

Maybe after a few years she would get some curves like your tree?

 

[AppleBonsai]

I think I got it! Acer Rubrum!

 

[Eric Group]

Not Rubrum.

 

[sorce]

I didn't know they grafted Amur to dog bones!

Seriously, they got Tire ads now, just came back to state that.

And, this is the oddest tree ever.

Looks like some kind of mutation to the trunk. Maybe one of a kind!

Sorce

 

[AppleBonsai]

Close-up of trunk