Freeman's Maple - Acer X freemanii



The tree in it's attempt to take over that poor little old lady. RUN LITTLE OLD LADY!

This is a natural hybrid of A. rubrum and A. saccharum -> red maple and silver maple.
It has the best traits of both species: it grows faster than red maple; it has stronger wood and better fall color (remember, red maples have GREAT fall color, but silvers suck).







I like this bark better than some
It's not so.. boring.
Look, texture! Brown tones! Highlights!



There is a long petiole (quite long; and the petiole is the connector between the base of the leaf and the stem) and it's red. Red maples aren't consistently much of anything - they can be red, or not, or striped; they can have open canopies, or not; you get the idea. Remember? Well, Freeman's Maple tends to be a bit more consistent.

 It also doesn't have the silver under the leaf  and has deeply dissected lobes (think fingers as opposed to paws: paws tend to be rounded with very little in-between-the-toes space, while fingers have a ton of space between the toes). There are 3 lobes. This sets it way apart from the two species it was born from.

These are the samaras - seeds. They're very distinctive. If you remember the norway, they were glossy and a fresh froggy-green color. These are, well, red. Look how pretty they actually are!