Hello all. I am new to this site and I have a simple maple-tree mystery challenging me and it seems there is no better place to look for an answer than the Maple Society! My question is simple: Do sugar maples cross with red maple? I ask this because in marking trees for tapping sap last year, (fall and into winter), I encountered a few trees showing characteristics of both species. The suspect trees had typical red maple bark, but they exhibited yellow, fall foliage, typical of a sugar maple, and in winter I observed that many of the branchlets angled more closely to the typical sugar maple pattern of 45-degree, than to 90-degree, which is typical of a red maple. A few days ago I decided to resolve the mystery by using springtime foliage as the final identifier. However, again I observed dual characteristics in the foliage of these same trees. I am convinced the trees in question are red maple because of the springtime production of seeds, (versus fall for sugars), but I can find no reference to explain red maples having similar leaf characteristics of sugar maples. The leaves are not the typical 3-lobe as is a teller of red maple, but they are clearly 5-lobed, as are sugar maple leaves. However some leaves have slightly serrated edges, as is seen with red maples. Additionally, some of the samaras are V pattern as with red maple, and some, on the same tree, are U pattern as with sugar maple. I know that black maple and sugar maple do cross, which makes me wonder if this is also documented with red/sugar species. Any guidance offered will be appreciated. Hermit
I've never heard of a Red × Sugar cross, and very much doubt it would be possible, as they are only distantly related within the genus. They also flower at different times of the spring, so cross-pollination would be extremely difficult if not impossible. Can you post a photo of some of the leaves? Also check out Freeman Maple (Acer × freemanii; hybrid Red × Silver), and other potential confusion species such as Sycamore Maple A. pseudoplatanus.
Hi Hermit for P.C. de Jong in the book "Maple of the World"(write together H.J. Oterdoom and whit the " MAGNO" nurseryman D. M. Van Gelderen)acer Saccarum(sugar maple)is in the section Saccharodendron ;acer Rubrum (red maple)is in the section Rubra .In the section Rubra together acer Rubrum is included acer Saccharinum (Silver maple)and like M.F.write is possible cross -impollination (Acer x Freemanii)."Maple of the World " by Timber Press.
Thank you for the replies. I also considered the different flowering times and, as I said, I have determined the trees in question must be red maple, but I cannot explain the similarities to sugar maple. I’ll post several pictures, all from one of the trees in question. The first is obviously of the fall foliage. The other two were taken a few days ago of new growth and samaras.
Yes, the leaves seem to show Silver Maple parentage. It would be an aberration (but perhaps not quite impossible!) to find a cross between the Red and Sugar Maples. Finding a lot of such crosses is impossible, practically speaking. However Silver and Red maples cross freely, leading to the so called Freeman Maple Michael mentioned. Sugar and Black maples are closely related and can cross easily. If you can get a look at the flowers that would help too, red for A. rubrum. yellow for A. X freemanii. -E
This is very educational. I knew nothing of a "Freeman" Maple. There are a very few silver maples in my woods, and such a union now makes sense. I should explain that I have no scientific background or education in this arena, I simply noticed some oddties and my curiosity demanded I look for answers. I've taken many pictures, and I will post one of the flowers, plus two pictures of buds, taken 3 days apart. You will notice that the flowers are red as are the beginning buds. Of interest to me, as I mentioned in my initial post, was the angularity of the branchlets. My experience was that only sugar maples produced a 45-degree branchlet take-off and red maples were reliably very close to 90-degree. These pictures show a slight variation of each on one single limb, but I have seen greater examples of this.
"This hybrid was first raised in 1933 at the U.S. National Arboretum by Oliver M. Freeman (b. 1931). The name commemorating Mr. Freeman was only given in 1969. Only clones are sold. Often nurseries ignore the Freemanii designation and sell cultivars as if they were purebred Red Maples (A. rubrum)." --Jacobson, North American Landscape Trees (Ten Speed Press)
Hermit, I checked a reference, Hardy de Beaulieu lists the flowers as red "similar to A. rubrum." My apologies for the confusion. I mistakenly remembered yellow. Oliver M. Freeman was born in 1891; otherwise he first hybridized the tree in 1933, at age 2, Ron! :) Further, "Maples of the World" (van Gelderen et al) notes that dense populations of naturally occurring A x freemanii were found in Hancock ME by T.R. Dudley. This is of interest to me as I have a lot of family there and spent many a childhood summer in Hancock, wandering the woods. -E
