Acer × freemanii, Freeman mapleorFreeman's maple, is a naturally occurring hybrid maple that is the result of a cross between Acer rubrum (red maple) and Acer saccharinum (silver maple). Wild specimens are found in eastern North America where the parent species overlap. The species is named for Oliver M. Freeman of the U.S. National Arboretum who hybridized A. rubrum with A. saccharinum in 1933. The fall foliage is a striking orange-red. It has many commercially available cultivars and is frequently used as a street tree.
The cultivars are typically deliberately hybridized and selected in nurseries, not drawn from the wild specimens. Usually infertile (a desirable trait in cultivated maples), they have stronger branch attachments than silver maples and faster growth rates than red maples.[2]
Even high-powered morphometric analyses of leaf shape cannot easily distinguish Acer × freemanii individuals from the parent species.[4] All that can be said is that Acer × freemanii is generally intermediate between the parents.[citation needed]
