Free cumulants were introduced by Speicher as a proper analog of classical
cumulants in Voiculescu's theory of free probability. The relation between free
moments and free cumulants is usually described in terms of Moebius calculus
over the lattice of non-crossing partitions. In this work we explore another
approach to free cumulants and to their combinatorial study using a
combinatorial Hopf algebra structure on the linear span of non-crossing
partitions. The generating series of free moments is seen as a character on
this Hopf algebra. It is characterized by solving a linear fixed point equation
that relates it to the generating series of free cumulants. These phenomena are
explained through a process similar to (though different from) the
arborification process familiar in the theory of dynamical systems, and
originating in Cayley's work
