A seedling will be a genetic mix of the mother and father.

Consider the pup of a pure bred yellow lab dog. It will be a mix of its mother the lab and the father who might not be a yellow lab.

Trees can be one step more complicated in that some can self pollinate. Difficult to track that. I will go on a limb of my genetic knowledge and say even then the seedling is not a genetic clone of its mother/father but a mix of the traits which were dominant and recessive in the lineage.

To get a clone you have to graft or root.

Seed-raised maple won't be same clone but could look like parent, this might or might not occur in any given instance. For example seedlings of 'Prinz Handjery' sycamore maple raised by Heronswood nursery were generally similar to the seed parent, sold as 'Puget Pink'.

Among woody ornamentals clonal seedlings are perhaps most associated with Rose Family trees such as mountain ashes and hawthorns. With these a rather large percentage of apomicts may occur, these are seedlings resulting from fruits generated without pollination.

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Dec 11, 14 at 12:29

I had a Schwedler Norway Maple with a variegated Ivy growing up it. After a few years it began to outgrow it's location so I cut it down and yanked it. There has never been any other Norways growing here and I'm sort of isolated. Nearby was a small seedling with the characteristic red leaves. I kept it trimmed over the years to bush size. I can't see any difference in the leaves from the original, although there might be.
I also have a seedling Coral Bark Maple that looks just like the parent to my eye.
Neither can be called the parents name, even though they look like it.
Mike
{{gwi:2122921}}

Depends on how broadly a cultivar becomes defined. In Britain, when it is recognized that a cultivar is in practice represented by multiple similar but independent introductions the term Cultivar Group comes into play. As in Cedrus atlantica Glauca Group and so on.

In recent years the now-closed Colvos Creek nursery on Vashon Island grew and sold seedlings from a fruitful coral-bark maple tree that generated a percentage of seedlings that were coral-barked also. When I worked at Swanson's nursery in Seattle during the 1980's I noticed a purple Japanese maple growing on the grounds had a carpet of seedlings beneath it, quite a few of whom were purple-leaved. I have also had the purple Norway maple across the street from here give off purple seedlings that came up on my place. There is also an entire wild grove of purple sycamore maples coming up through native alders etc. in a ravine on Vashon Island.

Problem is so far not as extensive as elsewhere in the northern US but a few sites in Seattle and vicinity have had so many Norway maples come up it has been suggested this species may eventually replace the apparently declining, native big-leaf maple here.

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Dec 11, 14 at 13:16