When I search for that I see a lot of trees with solid green leaves. I'm curious about which variety has pink on the underside and varigated white and green on the top?

It’s an Acer pseudoplatanus. Perhaps the cultivar ‘Esk Sunset‘.

The thing with red maples is......they are not red :- ) Red flowers and sometimes red fall coloring but not red leaves.

That looks like one of the sycamore maples, Acer pseudoplatanus, with colored/variegated foliage. Perhaps 'Brilliantissimum' or 'Esk Sunset'

ETA: didn't mean to step on your toes, floral :-) Your post wasn't showing when I was typing.

‘Brilliantissiumum’ is pink but not also variegated. ‘Esk Sunset’ is both.

I really appreciate all of the comments! After searching online, I agree it looks very much like 'Esk Sunset'. Now to find a local nursey that carries it or order online. Thanks very much!

Toes intact GG. I’m used to the transatlantic hiccup.

I've only grown 'Esk Sunset'. Photos of 'Brilliantissimum' make it look variegated.......sort of. Just not to the degree of 'Esk Sunset', although that can vary widely with siting and sun exposures too.

Depending where you live Jacqueline, you might find your tree for sale under the incorrect name of 'Eskimo Sunset'. It originated as a chance seedling in the garden of John Wills in the Esk Valley in New Zealand. How that morphed from Esk to Eskimo is anyone's guess, but it is still widely grown and sold under that name in the US.

Thank you GardenGal. I am also in the PNW. Olympia area. I saw this tree planted outside a local nursery. I appreciate the additional information.

Acer pseudoplatanus, ’Esk Sunset’, if it colours at all, turns yellow or sometimes orange, not ‘brilliant red’.

It’s beautiful, but something to consider— Acer pseudoplatanus’ native range is in Europe/Asia. In addition to potentially being invasive in your area (am not sure if this cultivar was bred to reduce invasive qualities)— nonnative trees don’t provide any ecological/ wildlife benefit to your area. There are SO MANY beautiful tree options that are native to your area or much of the US that would support a healthy ecosystem in your area!

https://www.invasive.org/weedcd/pdfs/wow/sycamore_maple.pdf

I am not qualified to comment on the invasiveness of A pseudoplatanus in N America but I would just point out that that source is incorrectly illustrated. The photo of the flower is not A pseudoplatanus.

As to having no ecological value, I’d be surprised if that were completely so since it's just another Acer with similar pests and diseases as native Acers, such as leaf galls and aphids. It surely provides food in the form of insects, nectar and fruit.

Many of the trees we plant in our landscapes are not of native origin. Are you suggesting we stop planting Japanese maples, kousa dogwoods, gingkos, paperbark maples, Syringa reticulata, Pinus parviflora, copper beeches or several hundred other popular non-native species? And they DO provide ecological or wildlife benefit, although perhaps not to the same degree as a native species but any tree can benefit the environment in numerous ways.

btw, Acer pseudoplatanus (and certainly Esk Sunset) is not recognized as an invasive species in the PNW.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. We’re in the midst of mass extinction events happening all around us as this planet and it’s ecosystems continue to die. It’s fair to correct my earlier statement as yes, all trees will provide some ecological value/ wildlife benefit, but these are a small fraction when compared to the benefits of most native trees. And just because a tree with invasive qualities isn’t currently on invasive list for PNW doesn’t mean it won’t be once it becomes more of a problem in the area.

You are certainly free to adopt a natives only policy if you like in your garden. But you will be battling very long and hard to convince most gardeners to follow suit. A great many native plants are not the slightest bit garden worthy and because of the size and geographical diversity of this country, many plants native to one area of the country will be unsuitable or struggle to grow in another. Natives are often simply not a good choice.

Of the thousands of non-native plant species available in this country, only a very small percentage - a mere handful - have proved to be problematic. And rarely ever widely spread problematical. Any plant's ability to become invasive is restricted by growing conditions and climate. Regionality is a major determinant of invasive propensities. With very few exceptions, plants that have proven to be an invasive threat on the east coast are of minimal concern in that regard on the west coast. And vice versa. Very distinctly different climates and growing conditions.

And it's difficult to imagine what a natives only policy would do to the food crops we grow and enjoy and rely on to feed our livestock and ourselves.

I have no experience with Esk Sunset, and I haven't seen any invasive tendencies with the straight species in my area, but while I agree with much of what gardengal has said, I also think P.D.'s cautionary words have validity, "just because a tree with invasive qualities isn’t currently on invasive list for PNW doesn’t mean it won’t be once it becomes more of a problem in the area."

A web search led to this article from Seattle University that studied an area in northern WA [the Upper Skagit River near Newhalem, WA] and concluded that, "48% of the forest is now comprised of non-native species, primarily sycamore maple", and "The stem density of sycamore maple was far greater than the most abundant native species", and "the presence of multiple age classes of sycamore maple ... clearly suggests that they are outcompeting native species". They go on to recommend a management option that involves "the removal of mature sycamore maple ... within the riparian corridor in town and downstream to remove the seed source and control the spread".

"nonnative trees don’t provide any ecological/ wildlife benefit to your area."

This is complete intellectual rubbish, and I deeply appreciate that gardengal and floral already started helping me 'take out the trash'. "Natives are always best" or "only natives are helping the environment/ecology", etc. is the latest pseudoscientific, virtue signaling nonsense from that certain slice of the American booboisie* we all know and love. Except when we don't. If Christian Lander had written 'Stuff White People Like' 10 years later, "Promoting Native Plants" would surely have been one of the items! (It kind of was at the time, of course, but just a bit below his radar. My brother, who in a curious twist of fate was actually a friend of Lander, teased me about an encounter with a certain leftist but beloved AP American History teacher of ours in high school, whose first question was asking me if I used native plants when I had a chance encounter with her 10 years after graduation, and told her I was into gardening. And btw I'm not saying anything about my own 'politics' with this characterization...I would point out my high school had a couple teachers I would similarly characterize as 'right wing but beloved', like Tom DeLay's wife! Although she was more beloved as the country's winningest cheerleading coach LOL.)

For starters I can do no better or worse than direct readers to this brilliant essay: http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/1998-58-1-an-evolutionary-perspective-on-strengths-fallacies-and-confusions-in-the-concept-of-native-plants.pdf

No doubt if SJG were still around, he'd still be effortlessly dealing with these dolts.

That being said, I'm ALL for regulation of the actually threatening, dangerous exotics, which is surely < 5% of them. I drive around Cecil and Harford counties and want to enact a very punishing fine on the morons who are letting their rural property be overrun by Asian bittersweet, which is the 'kudzu of the mid-Atlantic, but scarier'. There's a stretch of the highway that runs up the left bank of the Hudson that I spotted driving to Canada in 2016. The Celastrus literally destroyed an entire forest. It was like something from a dystopian film set. I wish I'd pulled over and taken a picture of it, but it's dangerous to gratuitously stop on a highway and I'm risk averse so I didn't. Likewise I think everyone needs to be a responsible player. I'm actually actively considering, more than 50% of the way there in fact, the deaccession of Zanthoxylum simulans from my garden...because it's a bit more spready than I would want it to be. And obviously, the seedlings are a PITA to pull!

* google it...hail the Sage of Baltimore...seen here predicting you know who

Agree w/you davidrt. Something like half the perennial and annual weed species are not native in my area, but there are insects and animals certainly using them. My yard growing up had huge Norway maples surrounding the house (planted back in the 1910s), and they were full of squirrels (too many). The lot sounded like a chorus in summer evenings w/all the cicadas and tree-katydids in them. Nordmann fir (also 1910s) at the corner was a favorite for nesting birds and cover for them in the winters. And on and on.

David—

I never claimed to be a scientist and I already admitted to having made too-strong/over-exaggerated statements in an earlier comment here.

The resource you posted from SJG (a controversial and oft-debunked pop scientist) has surprisingly few biological arguments, instead relying on a lot of sociopolitical drivel (for the record, I myself studied sociology), the purpose of which is unclear other than apparently having some axe to grind.

I’m the US “native” typically means having been here prior to white settlement/colonization and all of the species this introduced to the americas (so the notion that ‘nativism’ in gardening is somehow racist doesn’t really work here, because white colonizers become the invasive species, so to speak).

I’m still learning myself, but I’d suggest that folks here familiarize themselves with the work of Doug Tallamy, which has documented quite well local food webs’ reliance and need for native plants. https://homegrownnationalpark.org/tallamys-hub-1

As for myself, a few years ago I bought and planted about 50 native plants, interspersing them in and around my established garden of many nonnative (albeit generally non-harmful) plant species, in my postage stamp of a yard in an area known for urban pollution. The difference this has made in the amount of wildlife/pollinators coming into our yard (various bees, moths, butterflies, birds, etc) has really been downright staggering. Again, 50 native plants on a tiny urban yard massively diversified and increased the number of native species flocking to our garden. That personal experience has made me a believer, and I love a nice Japanese Maple just as much as the next guy/gal.

✌️

Ok, well, I never claimed SJG was the final word on the topic. I merely said it was a good place to start ("for starters"). You critique his paper as having "surprisingly few biological arguments", I would agree that the notion of native supremacy espoused by "popular scientists" such as Tallamy (LOL, see, two can play at that game...Tallamy's academic background and prestige does not light a candle to Gould's) has "surprisingly few [reasonable] biological arguments as well". We're the biggest invader, and our fields of corn, RR soy, and wheat (not to mention livestock!) have done orders of magnitude (look up the concept if unfamiliar) more "damage" to the environment that my decision to grow choice Asian woodland plants instead of the meagre North American equivalents in my garden, will ever have. So what are we going to do, pack up all the evil white parasites and move ourselves back to Europe? Of course I'm being sarcastic. If people like Tallamy really wanted to 'fix the planet', they would argue for population control. (And not in western Europe or US/Canada LOL)

AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE, I'm all for people planting natives if that's what they want to do. I have plenty of natives in my garden. What I abhor is the 1) the false notion that only natives support a healthy ecological balance, when it's so demonstrably false and 2) the magical thinking that most people can maintain what is a make believe version of a native landscape anyhow, on a large scale. The native landscape of the east coast is deciduous forests. If that's what you want, go for it. Not fields of milkweeds. Unless 'intensively managed' - code word for the dreaded h-word - attempts to do that in a place that 'wants to be forest' are just going to lead to a big weed pile. I even notice municipalities seem to be abandoning the "median full of wildflowers" wave that was trendy 15 or so years ago. Because guess what, for a hellstrip between highways, mown grass is really the least awful option. It's ALREADY a permanently 'damaged' landscape. Just because us and our crap (roads, buildings, etc.) are already here and not going ANYWHERE. I've donated to the Nature Conservancy and am all for preserving real nature. I'm not for people having an excuse to have messy yards because they think they are saving the planet. I'm sure that's not the case with you, but it's bound to happen as this fatuous 'movement' takes hold.