can anyone tell me what kind of tree this is

Thursday, 26 Jun 08 (posted about 7 months ago)

this tree showed up in my garden it grows fairly quickly looks like a maple of some sort but i did not plant it does not really look like the rest of my maple trees any suggestions?

Want to comment?

Janietta wrote:
Maybe it blew in, or was carried in by a bird? It certainly looks maple-ish to me.

Posted on 30 Jun 08 (about 6 months ago)
Cmagnus wrote:
I have been pulling them up in my yard ever since the helicopter inundation. Many of the sprouts still have their helicopters attached. I’m pretty confident its a maple variety. … Unless there’s something else that looks like a maple and uses helicopters.

Posted on 01 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Flowerlady wrote:
hmmm… i was wonedering if it is a manitoba maple maybe we used to have a few but got rid of them because they get too branchy and messy they certainly grow fast.

Posted on 01 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Verthandei wrote:
It looks to me rather more like a Maple-leaf Vibernum (Viburnum acerifolium), which are quite common in the Connecticut woods (where I grew up) along with the sugar maples (Acer saccharum) that they resemble. It does not really look like a sugar maple to me (though it’s hard to tell from the photo – can you take a macro shot of one typical leaf?) Sugar maples (the most common deciduous tree in southern New England anyway, and I would guess fairly common in southern Ontario?) have three main “lobes” (not really lobes like an oak but I don’t know what they are really called), which are more deeply separated, and they generally have only a few, bigger serrations along the leaf margins. The maple-leaf vibernum has less deep lobes and many more small serrations along the leaf margins. Maple-leaf vibernum have dark blue fruits in the fall instead of the whirly-gigs the true maples produce, so if you just wait until fall I guess you would know if I am right! But do try to post another close-up of the leaf so we can have another go at it!

Hm, on second thought the vibernum looks rather more like the striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum) than the sugar. But I still think it might be the vibernum.

(Disclosure: I am totally not a dendrologist. I did spend much of my childhood running around in the woods though.)

Posted on 01 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Planting Oaks wrote:
I don’t think it’s a maple. It looks from the picture like some of the leaves are actually compound leaves – some threes and some fives. I’m going to guess a box elder.

Some of the ends look very similar to poison ivy, but it’s a tree not a vine, and has the five-compounds. We were always getting scared by the box-elder seedlings because we thought they were poison ivy.

Posted on 02 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Con10t777 wrote:
Here is a site that might help with identification:
http://www.arborday.org/trees/whattree/index.cfm
Good luck!

Posted on 04 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Hammertime wrote:
Hard to tell for sure from the pic, but I would also guess a box elder. If it just flew in, then you likely have a female on your property already or some one in your neighborhood does. They do grow fast and the female trees attract the box elder bug which can be a real pain. Especially if you have a white south facing house. Look it up on line. I can’t bear to cut our tree down, but come fall when the bugs start to hide for winter it is a war zone……..the seedlings do resemble poison ivy and are all over the place

Posted on 04 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)
Flowerlady wrote:
thanks everyone for all the input

Posted on 15 Jul 08 (about 6 months ago)