Was out walking in my woods. The real Fall color has not gotten here just yet. But, I found this 1 foot tall Sugar Maple seedling with some great color. Is it perhaps a new variant? Was thinking I should mark where it is and move it out into the sun next Spring. Or is it just a stressed seedling? Been very dry here lately.
Don't want to rain on your parade, but that really looks like a Red Maple (Acer rubrum) to me. In which case, that is normal appearance.
A good separating ID feature between Red Maple and Sugar Maple (especially when dormant) are their respective buds. Sugar Maple will have pointed brown buds, and Red Maple will have rounded reddish buds.
The terminal bud is not visible in your image. Check it (or post it) to verify what you've got there.
Of course. But, I have no other Red Maple trees, and lots of Sugar Maples. I'll check the bud out.
Ditto to Red Maple; another way to tell is that Red has serrated margins to the lobes, whereas Sugar has smooth apart from one or two large teeth.
Maple seeds can blow a long way in a gale!
Resin
I looked but the terminal bud is too small for an ID. Marked it location and plan on moving it next Spring.
I hate to rain on it too but I've seen several seedlings that looked quite a bit different than the species of tree. For example, the seedling's leaves might be a brilliant color, they might be larger, or they might appear to be evergreen when it's a deciduous tree. Here's a Shumard Oak that at the time so appeared to be evergreen I was about to call the Smithsonian! But, it soon lost it's leaves, it was about this time that I realized that seedlings can really vary. I've had a Bur Oak seedling for another example that was a brilliant red in the Fall and I thought I hit the jackpot but it too became the colors of a normal Bur Oak in the Fall.
Here's that "evergreen" Shumard Oak seedling. -
I've carefully marked several seedling red maples which had fabulous color when young. But they grew into mature trees with rather ordinary fall coloration. In my experience, the coloration of the few leaves on a tiny youth don't reliably predict mature coloration.
an additional note ... if you move the red maple into a bright sunny location you may get an even nicer display of colour as more sunlight equals more red pigments produced in the autumn - the pigments are called anthocyanins and are produced in some species like maples and some oaks (the yellows and oranges we see are present throughout the summer but are hidden by the green chlorophyll). But of course, drought stress in the autumn ruins everything, so ensure a suitable site with adequate soil moisture.
