AUTUMN BLAZE MAPLE, AND THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

RED MAPLE , ACER RUBRUM

SILVER MAPLE, ACER SACHARINUM

AUUTUM BLAZE MAPLE, ACER RUBRUM x 'JEFFSRED''

Saturday,  9:00 AM.  38 degrees F, wind WNW, calm to light.  The sky is again mostly overcast, the humidity is 82% and the barometer is up a bit at 29.99", but everything is still wet, with no change in sight.  Give us a break here, please!
  What do you get when you cross a silver maple tree with a red maple tree?  The truly spectacular hybrid, Autumn Blaze maple.
   The red maple, Acer rubrum, is a beautiful tree, native to much of North America.  In the wild it can grow to over 150' tall and 50' wide, and in cultivation probably 100' tall.  It usually has red leaves in the fall, but that color may not be consistent, and can vary to yellow and in between.  It is faster growing than the sugar maple but perhaps not as sturdy, and prefers wetter soil conditions.
   Silver maple, Acer sacharinum, is also native to much of North America, usually in lowlands, but it will tolerate much drier conditions.  It grows to about the same size at the red maple, but is weak wooded, faster growing and prone to wind damage.  Because it is so fast growing it is much over-planted and can be a hazzard on city streets and near structures. I do not recommend it.
   The Autumn Blaze maple, Acer rubrum x 'Jeffsred', combines many of the good qualities of both the red and silver maple, without the undesirable qualities of the silver maple, and it has a consistently beautiful cerise fall color. The x in its scientific name indicates it is a hybrid cross, and as near as I can gather, it is a hybrid of a red maple and a horticultural selection of a a silver maple, called 'Jeffsred.'  It is quite fast growing, the two I planted in the yard as saplings ten years ago now towering over the house.  To this point they have been trouble free with good branch structure, although both trees have some frost cracks in the bark which have healed over well.  It is hard not to love these trees, which were introduced to the nursery trade in 1982.
   Natural crosses between red and silver maple are known to occur in nature, and I have kept an eye out for one for almost sixty years but never found one.  The popularity of the Autumn Blaze is raising concerns that they are being over-planted, and as Bayfield City Forester I no longer plant them as street trees, since we already have an overabundance of species and varieties of maple in our tree inventory and we need to increase our tree genus and species diversity.  But as a horticulturist I will still plant the Autumn Blaze if a customer asks for one, as they are an undeniably outstanding accent in the landscape.
   The role-out of Obamacare would be hilarious if only it weren't so expensive and tragic, and the President appears more and more like the subject of Hans Christian Anderson's 1836 fable, The Emperor's New Clothes.
   He considers himself omnipotent, attempting to rule everyone and everything, and suddenly he stands naked before his subjects, who have been to this point too adoring or too cowed to oppose his utopian schemes.
   Finally, people are beginning to call out, "The Emperor has on no clothes at all!"