Acer davidii 'Serpentine' - and the inconsistency of text descriptions !

One of the nicest things about the small tree in the semi-shade labelled as Acer davidii 'Serpentine' just to the north of Sandell Lake in the College grounds is the fulsome display of fruits above your head and against the sky as you stand underneath the arching boughs. The fruit nutlets are green and the fruit wings yellowish to pinkish in this tree at the moment. The branches are densely leaved as well as fruited and the overall effect is somewhat ethereal.

Bluebell Nurseries proclaim a yellow autumn colour for their plants, while Ornamental Tree Nurseries say that theirs colour up a deep red, and the Shoot website and Larch Cottage Nurseries claim their trees' leaves become a deep orange. Does it vary with the plant's genetics or environment I wonder, or are the colours just variable on each tree? I wonder what this particular College tree will end up as?

There is similar variation in the described colours of the fruits (pink-brown or red) and the bark (red, purplish). The petioles may be green (in the shade?) to pinkish. A. davidii ssp davidii is partly separated from A. davidii ssp grosseri in at least some texts by the former's pink to red petioles and the latter's green ones.

Here is a quote from the TreesandShrubs online: † cv. ‘Serpentine’. – A selection raised from seed in Holland, apparently from Forrest’s form, with smaller leaves than normal. Young wood brown. (http://treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/acer/acer-davidii/).

This is quoted from the Polish PlantMar website: "This cultivar was discovered as a chance seedling in a nursery in Boskoop (Holland), raised and introduced by W.J. Hooftman in 1976. Much smaller than the type, forms small shrubby trees to 5-6 m high by 4 m. Leaves dark green, narrow and oval, almost unlobed (specially on older plants), smaller than the species (10 cm long) with red petioles. The bark is the most ornamental. On young shoots it is carmine-red to purple (specially nice in the winter) with distinctive, creamy stripes. Here is a picture from a shoot in the sun that seems to capture the colour of the petioles, the summer shoots and the one year old twigs."

Again from the PlantMar website, "the older twigs are olive-green with vertical pearl-white stripes. Buds red. Fruits abundant, samaras to 2 cm long. Autumn colours orange and yellow, not so reliable. Good plant for smaller gardens."

I wonder if the bark could be improved by cleaning off the lichens, etc? These two pictures below are of quite large main trunks, about xxx girth, so obviously refer to the older bark description above "olive green with pearl-white stripes".

One feature that every website seems to agree on however, is that the leaves of this cultivar are rather narrower than the type. This picture below seems to indicate the relatively narrow leaves of this Cultivar, as well as what might be leaf damage caused by a hungry caterpillar.