Why is trident maple scarce in nurseries?

As far as I know, trident can be grown as easy (if not easier) than other maple from seed. I find 5 maple varieties (or more) everywhere from small nurseries to big box stores but no trident. Most available are regular japanese maple, coral bark maple, red maple, and other "exotic" varieties. Why is this?

Commercial appetite is the answer. Not enough Maple enthusiasts value Trident Maple and there are too few bonsai growers for us to figure in major nurseries propagation regimes. You just have to seek out the specialist nurseries and bonsai nurseries. Even the specialists don't carry many of the varieties of Acer buergerianum that I would love to get hold of. There are many. Here are just a few from Wikipedia "Several interesting cultivars have been developed, many of these bear Japanese names. Notable cultivars include 'Goshiki Kaede' (striking pink and green variegation), 'Kifu Nishiki' (roundish, almost un-lobed leaves), 'Mino Yatsubusa' (dwarf with long, narrow leaves) 'Mitsubato Kaede' (distinctive cork-like trunk) and 'Naruto' (strongly incurved leaf surface)" Vertrees's books list more.

hi Dario,

Kev has probably hit the nail on the head there - nobody wants them. To be fair as a landscape tree they dont have a lot going for them compared with palmatums - i like the occassional trident bonsai but the one i have in the ground is just a tree, in all honesty it is the most boring of all the trees in the garden. Its the same as fagus crenata white beech in the UK - none in the vast majority of plant nurseries and the few very odd varients that appear in online cataloges all have normal brown/grey bark, my first crenata was from this strain and it doesnt go white and the leaves are much larger than the expected form.

cheers Marcus

Thanks guys!

Because they've never been widely available (or pushed) as landscape material. It's a nice little tree with great fall color here, so I'm not sure why it's stayed under the radar for so long. I know of 3 old tridents here in Mobile, and I've often wondered how and where they came from.

One of our wholesale nurseries out in the county here in Mobile grows tridents. They order a lot of maples and cherries from field growers in Oregon, are shipped to Alabama bare root then pot them into 10 or 20 gallon pots depending on the plant and size. They are beautiful as uniform landscape trees, but worthles as bonsai material (imo) since they have the grace and taper of a broom stick - and they ain't cheap.

There have been seedling sources mentioned here before, but that may have been before your time. Matt Ouwinga (sp?) comes to mind. Also, I've seen tridents for sale at Home Depot here too, but not at Lowe's. Keep an eye on their shade tree selection. Again, they aren't interesting, but they're smaller caliper and cheap enough to cut back hard and grow off in the ground.

Guess I will pay Home Depot a visit . Thanks for the tip Russell.