Wood identification

[gregmcateer]

Good people,

I've found a tree I cannot ID - please help!

Leaves seem to start reddish and as they unfurl they go green. See photos of leaves and bark.

Thanks in advance

Greg

 

[gregmcateer]

Weirdly, I can't get the bark photo small enough. Any idea how to shrink a android phone photo? (hammer)

 

[Yojevol]

Load Plantsnap onto your android phone. That'll identify it for you.
Brian

 

[gregmcateer]

Thanks, Brian. Will give it a go
Greg

 

[gregmcateer]

Sadly, Plantsnap didn't find it- just suggested vines or grasses and small bushes. This tree has a trunk about 16 inches diameter at the base. Unfortunately it has been cut 'down' at about 12 feet high, so no overall canopy available as additional clue.

I'll try to save the bark photo somehow. In the mean time, it's quite rough, though not knarly. Brown with grey hints to it.

Sheesh this is difficult!

 

[AndyT]

I recommend using the Open Camera app. Unlike default phone apps, it gives you full control over size settings so you can just take a small filesize pic with no need for fiddling after. Free, no ads and can be used alongside any other phone app.

No idea on the other question.

 

[gregmcateer]

Cheers Andy

 

[CHJ]

Check out the bark against Rowans.

 

[gregmcateer]

Thanks for that thought, Chas - I'll do that next time I'm out and socially distancing :wink: I think the bark is too rough to be Rowan

Meanwhile, Here's the bark photo. Hopefully the size reduction doesn't degrade the quality too much (no idea why it's gone on its side!);

 

[Richard_C]

Woodland trust do a useful free app, you can use the 'decision questions' or a photo. Questions is good but you need to be close or have a leaf in your hand ideally, can't see things like fine leaf hairs on your photo. You can do it by Bark as well.

It doesn't ask if leaves are opposed or alternate but its a useful check when you do arrive at the answer. Yours look to be opposite, one pair sticks out from same place on stem. Alternate is when they come off the stem left-right-left-right. I thought your might be Bay Willow (is it at all boggy?) but they are alternate so likely not.

Anyway, woodland trust id app for android or ios, free, if you work through carefully it should get you there. Once you do get your answer read the species description carefully, you sometimes see things like "very rare only grows in ...." and you think hmmm, can't be that so start again.

 

[gregmcateer]

Thanks, I'll take a look.
Funnily enough, it doesn't matter - I just want to know now!

 

[CHJ]

One thing I noted, sprouting shoots from low down on substantial main trunk, look very tender and rapid growth, the same sort of growth you see with Sumacs (different leaf form) and the like.

You don't say where the tree is growing but suspect it is a specimen tree, I can't rationalise the leaf with the trunk form and proportions against European or regularly imported north American specimens.

 

[gregmcateer]

Hi Chas,
It is weird, isn't it. I'll try to get a couple of other pictures and then just hope some blossom of some sort appears. Failing that, I'll have to sneak down one day and lop some more off the trunk and split it to see the grain.
It's just in a little side patch by a public footpath, but may have been part of a garden in the past.
Cheers
Greg

 

[Yojevol]

I had a chat with my arboreal son-in-law today re. your tree I/D. He didn't recognise it so we had a search through his mighty tome on world trees. The nearest we could get to is Japanese Walnut or Manchurian Walnut. There are plenty of relevant images if you google these. There may be some clues there which may be of further interest to you.
He was interested in the red tinging of the leaves, especially the shoot just showing on the trunk photo. This redness can be a sign that the tree is under stress probably though water shortage in these dry times. The redness is caused by the production of anti-bodies which are to guard against infection whilst the tree is in a stressed state. He is seeing it a lot on ash trees at the moment.
Brian

 

[gregmcateer]

Hi Brian,
That's really knit of you and your son in law to go to that trouble.
I think you could be right, looking at the images on the web.
The redness cause is interesting: it was a 'stump' about 12 feet high, having been cut down in the past, so it could well have been suffering.
I had been keeping an eye out for a tree surgeon working on it or nearby, to ask for some offcuts, but sod's law - I walked past it yesterday and they've cut it down to a foot high. Wood all gone!! Grrr