Mystery tree from November 9

On November 9, my attention was caught by trees near the parking garage entrance that were still bright with autumn color, when many other trees were past their peak.

They had distinctive buds

and distinctive fruit.

The leaves were pinnately veined.

How to identify this intriguing tree? The books that I got to help me identify unkown trees (What Tree is This and The Tree Identification Book) usually leave me frustrated.  What usually works is flipping through Trees of New York.  However, I could see that this was a cultivated tree, so I did not expect it to be in Trees of New York.  I expected it to be in The Sibley Guide to Trees, but that's a 400 page book.  How could I look through every page of that book until I found it?

Once I became aware of this type of tree, I realized that it was in other places I frequented (the Union, the quad between Lally and Sage, and downtown by the Atrium).

This is the one near Sage, photographed November 14:

I had four days off for Thanksgiving, so finally I looked through The Sibley Guide to Trees. I found it was not nearly as hard as I had feared.  There were some sections that were clearly not right, so I could skip those sections.  The tree that seemed to match was the Callery Pear.  It matches in this ways:

• Leaf shape.
• Leaf autumn color.
• Tree shape.
• Commonly cultivated.
• Late fall foliage.
• Fruit.  Actually, the fruit I saw on the trees was a little different from how it looked in the book, but it was the closest match compared to the fruits of other trees in the book.

Mystery tree at Sage College

What is this tree I saw at Sage College? At this time, few trees have leaves that are still green, but this tree's leaves are mostly green with just a little yellow.

The leaves are heart-shaped, with a pointy tip.

I took four photos to try to capture the buds, but mostly they came out fuzzy. The buds were red. In the first photo of a bud, you can also get another look at the shape of the leaves.

The bark seemed thin, and had both vertical and horizontal lines.

I don't have a photo of the fruit, and there was little fruit, but in one place I did see balls on a stalk.

I saw the red buds, and recalled that there is a type of tree called the redbud. I looked for redbud photos on the internet.  Most of the photos showed spring flowers, but from what I could find of leaves and bark, the leaf shape seemed to match, but the redbud bark seemed thicker.  Also, redbud trees seemed to be shorter than the tree I observed.

Next I went through What Tree is That?  It's always hard to work with that book, but the best I could tell was that the tree I saw is linden or basswood.

When I looked through the leaf pictures in The Tree Identification Book, I saw that the tree I observed did not match the redbud leaf, because the redbud leaf is not toothed.  The leaf that seemed to match was American linden.  I then turned to the American linden page of the book.  On that page, I found that in addition to the leaf matching, the buds and the fruit also match.

I checked Trees of New York and The Sibley Guide to Trees.  They did not really offer any new insights, but they seemed to agree that this tree is American linden, also known as American basswood, also known as basswood.

One thing that concerns me it that the bark shown in the tree books does not particularly match the bark on the tree that I saw.  I looked on the internet for pictures of linden bark.  Most did not match the tree I saw, but this one did look similar.

Trying to identify a common tree with small round fruits

When I went to the bike path on August 13, I noticed a grapevine using a small tree as a trellis.

There were grapes growing as if they were growing from the tree, but actually they were growing from the grapevine that twined around the tree.

Then I noticed that the tree itself also had fruits.  The fruits looked like grapes, and I looked back several times to check if these fruits were really growing out of the tree itself.

I took a picture of the leaves for help with identification:

When I got home, I noticed that there was a similar tree next to my driveway.

On August 18, I happened to be reading about plum trees in The Sibley Guide to Trees, and it struck me that what I was reading matched what I had seen: shrub or small tree in thicket, bark brown with lenticels, and small round fruits.

On August 27, at the bike path again, I photographed a different tree which seemed to be the same kind:

On September 18, I went to Peeble Island.  Thinking I might see this type of tree there, I flipped through Trees of New York by Stan Tekiela before going, and jotted down the following names of trees which had lenticels and small round fruits:

Buckthorn
Nannyberry
American plum
Canada plum
Pin cherry
Choke cherry

When I got there, I saw what seemed to be the same tree, but what was clearly evident was that its leaves were opposite.  That rules out plum and cherry.  In the photos in Trees of New York, the fruits of nannyberry hang down more, not matching the tree I saw. That leaves buckthorn.

When I try to identify the tree using the Arbor Day Foundation's What Tree is That?, the only choices it gives me for opposite, simple leaves are maple, catalpa, and dogwood.  The Tree Identification Book by Symonds lists two more choices besides maple, catalpla, and dogwood: paulownia and nannyberry.  The tree I am trying to identify does not match any of the choices in What Tree is That, and only bears a slight resemblance to nannyberry in The Tree Identification Book.  No wonder I find trying to identify trees using these books frustrating.

The Sibley Guide to Trees is not organized by which trees have opposite, simple leaves, but now that I have some possible names from Trees of New York, I can look up nannyberry and buckthorn.

Sibley lists nannyberry under the name rusty blackhaw.  It seems not to be the tree I am trying to identify because 1) it does not usually live in the northeastern US, 2) the fruits hang down more, and 3) the leaf veins are different.

It says that buckthorns may have either opposite or alternate leaves.  The book mentions two types of buckthorn and four types of false-buckthorn.  The one that seems the most likely candidate to be my tree is called European buckthorn, common buckthorn, or European waythorn.

The Sibley Guide to Trees says of common buckthorn, "low, rounded crown of tangled twigs and small dark leaves."  It says the twigs are thorny, and the leaves are "finely toothed, often with 3 main veins from base and veins follow leaf edges."

I compared the tree by my driveway with these statements.

• I did not particularly see a crown.  There are twigs with leaves all over the place. There is no rounded shape to it.
• I could see what they mean about thorny twigs, on a few twigs, just a little bit.
• I'm not really sure what "veins follow leaf edges" means.  There's a vein going down the middle, and veins coming off the side of it, which is what they call pinnately veined.  But the veins that go out to the side don't go straight out to the side, they are angled toward the tip of the leaf.  So if that's called "following leaf edges" then that's what they do.  The side veins seemed to be alternate rather than opposite.  Perhaps two side veins that start closest to the base, plus the middle vein are what they call "three main veins from base."  

Another thing I noticed that wasn't really mentioned in the book was that there were buds at the base of some of the leaves.

The fruits in the tree by the driveway struck me as smaller than the fruits on the other similar trees I observed.  On the first tree I observed, I thought they looked like grapes, but in the tree by the driveway, they seem smaller than grapes.

So for now I'm concluding that this tree is a buckthorn.

In high school science classes, they told us about the scientific method, told us that science was not about memorizing facts, but about forming a hypothesis and making observations to test that hypothesis.  But in the "experiments" they assigned us to do, they always told us exactly what amount of what chemical to add in what order.  We never really figured stuff out.   Despite lip service to the contrary, what we really learned in high school was to do as we were told.  But now, out in the real world, I'm finally trying to figure stuff out, as I try to identify trees.

Catkins

I had read about catkins as an attribute used in winter identification, so when I was walking at Peebles Island on April 2, I was excited to find a tree that had them.

Today, I looked in my tree books.  I learned that trees that have winter catkins are birch, hop hornbeam, and alder.   I concluded that the tree in the above photos seems to resemble sweet birch (also known as black birch or cherry birch).  I did some reading about birches and then went to Peebles Island again today.  I observed the same tree I had photographed two weeks ago and observed more carefully the pattern of the catkins.  There tend to be two catkins right on the end, a third just behind those two, and sometimes a fourth behind the third.  I also read today that older sweet birch trees have scaly bark, and I noticed trees with the same type of catkins that had scaly bark.  Another thing I had read was that the twigs smell and taste of wintergreen.  I broke off a twig from one of the trees.  I didn't notice any smell, but after a little bit of chewing, I got the wintergreen flavor.

I saw many of these sweet birches around Peebles Island, especially on the top of the cliff, above the river.  There were often hemlocks nearby, closer to the river, more on the side of the cliff than the top.

Birches

I had been thinking that birches that are white and peeling are paper birch, and birches that are white and smooth are gray birch.  Around work, I often see trees with bark which is white and peeling, so I thought they were paper birches.  However, I noticed that they had a reddish tint to them, which was different from the paper birches I saw growing up.  So I looked in the books, and it seems they are called river birches or red birches.

Commonly found types of birches:

• Gray birch, white birch, oldfield birch: Saplings have dark reddish brown bark with lighter lenticels. Older trees have white or gray bark, with black patches.   Tends to be smaller tree than other birches. Smaller catkins. Catkins tend to be individual rather than in clusters. Leaf is triangular. 
• Paper birch, white birch, canoe birch, silver birch: Saplings have dark reddish brown bark with lighter lenticels.  On older trees, usually bark is white and peeling, but some may retain the reddish, unpeeling bark typical of younger trees. Larger catkins. Leaf rounded, with pointy tip. 
• Black birch, sweet birch, cherry birch: Young bark is smooth, old bark is scaly. Larger catkins. Leaf resembles elm. Twigs have wintergreen odor.
• Red birch, river birch: Young bark is peeling, reddish, yellowish, gray.  Old bark is scaly, gray.  Smaller catkins. Commonly cultivated. In the wild, grows in southeastern US on stream banks and river floodplains.
• Yellow birch, gray birch, silver birch, swamp birch: Younger trees have bronze bark which may or may not be peeling.  Older trees have gray plated bark that may peel. Larger catkins.Leaf resembles elm.

Yesterday as I drove through Massachusetts and Connecticut, I saw a lot of trees with white bark.  I saw similar trees when I was in Maine a few months ago.  I do not see this kind so commonly around where I live.  These trees have white bark, but it does not seem to be peeling.  Maybe that means they are gray birch.  Or maybe they are paper birch, and maybe paper birch is not necessarily noticeably peeling, especially when seen from a distance.

Maine last December:

River birches at work:

Sources:
Sibley, David Allen.  The Sibley Guide to Trees.
Symonds, George W. D.  The Tree Identification Book.

Trying to identify two trees

Today at Peebles Island, there were two trees that I tried to identify. As I found when I tried to identify trees last summer, mostly I can't figure out what trees are when I try to identify them.  But somehow in time, I got to know what many of the trees I see were, so maybe in time, I will come to realize what these are too.  The way it works is I study the trees, I study the books, and at first there is no connection between books and reality, but then all of a sudden, I find I know the name of a tree I've been seeing for a while.  I think it's good that way.  I think it would feel like cheating if someone just told me what they all were.  That would take the fun out of it.

The first had smooth gray bark on the trunk, but the twigs were more rust-colored.  The buds were opposite and were sort of a yellow or tan color, maybe with a reddish/brownish tint.  The branches split and pointed upward.

My observation of the second tree was cut short because when two people and a dog came by, I moved on. However, I noticed several of this kind of tree along the path, including one next to the above tree.  This tree was dark gray with lenticels.  The book I'm using,  A Guide to Nature in Winter indicates that if it has lenticels and catkins it's birch, if no catkins, it's cherry. I find the trees I see in reality often aren't in the books, but this tree had no catkins, and when I look at cherry twigs on the internet, it seems plausible that this could be cherry.

Orange tree

I saw an orange tree! And I don't mean a tree that bears the fruit we call an orange.  I mean a tree that is actually orange in color.  I looked on the internet to see what it might be, and my best guess is coral bark maple.  I didn't get close enough to the tree to see if it had opposite buds, because there was snow in the way.

My first exploration of winter twigs

I have been reading about identifying trees in winter by their twigs in A Guide to Nature in Winter by Donald Stokes, so I decided to go out today to look at winter twigs and see what I could see.

The book made it sound easy.  For each type of tree, two characteristics of the twigs are given, and that's enough to identify the type of tree (the book identifies them by genus, not species).  I knew from my  experience with summer identification that it's never as easy as it sounds. I also had noticed that the book did not include all the kinds of trees that I know are in my neighborhood.  Thus to make things easy, I started off my examining some trees I already knew from my summer identification.

First I looked at ash trees. I could not see the twigs very well because the branches were too high.  I had binoculars (a Christmas gift from my brother and his wife) so I used those to get a look at the twigs.  I did see that they had opposite side buds and end buds.  The book says that the way to tell ash and maple apart in winter is by their end buds, but either I couldn't get a good look at the end bud, or else I just didn't know what to look for, since I did not recall at that time what the book said about telling ash apart from maple.  Also, in a residential neighborhood, I was a little uncomfortable about using the binoculars too much, for fear someone would think I was spying on them.

Next I looked at Norway maple twigs. This was easier because the tree was on a hill. By standing in a spot that was higher than where the trunk of the tree was, I could reach the twigs and get a good look.  I saw that the buds were red.  The side buds were opposite, and seemed to be in the same locations as the leaf scars.  It seemed that the farther back on the twig I looked, the smaller the side buds got.  The end buds looked like a cluster of a lot of buds.  The twigs seemed to branch oppositely, but the big main branches of the tree were not opposite.

I got two pictures of the Norway maple twigs, but you can't really see that much:

After studying this tree for a while, I moved on.  Walking down a street, I saw a tree and wondered what it was. I knew that it was a tree that I had identified in the summer, but I couldn't recall what it was. I examined the twigs, and found that the buds were opposite. From my summer identification, I knew the only opposite trees on this street were maples, so I knew it was a maple.

Farther down the street was a tree  which I had not definitively identified in the summer. I thought I recalled that it had simple, unlobed leaves and perhaps some fruit. I took these photos:

The book says that the short, stubby twigs that can be seen in the top picture are called spurs and that they are found in apple and cherry trees.  It also says that cherry trees have lenticels like birch, so I am thinking that this tree is a crabapple.

Fruit trees -- blosssoms and berries

Around where I work, there are some fruit trees that are nice because they have fruit through the winter,and blossoms in the spring. I asked Bob what they were, and he said, "some sort of cherry or crabapple."

February 24, 2010

February 24, 2010

 

April 28, 2010

April 29, 2010

August 25, 2010

October 21, 2010

November 8, 2010

November 9, 2010

Two trees on 13th Street - Are they Japanese maples?

Trees in yards, 13th and Peoples, and 13th and Jacob. As far as I can tell, both are Japanese maples, but they aren't the same as each other. Those by Peoples have turned dark red. Those by Jacob mostly green.

Tracing of leave from the Jacob Street tree:

This leaf is toothed and palmately veined. Stem and veins are red.

Sycamore maple

I happened across some leaves that were most perplexing.  They looked like sycamore, but they were opposite, so they had to be maple.  I brought them home for closer study, looked in my books, and found out they they were sycamore maple.