Acer × freemanii
Acer" × "freemanii, Freeman maple or Freeman'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. Cultivars. 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. Description. Even high-powered morphometric analyses of leaf shape cannot easily distinguish "Acer × freemanii" individuals from the parent species. All that can be said is that "Acer × freemanii" is generally intermediate between the parents.