Tree id

[NonTypical]

12 hours ago, rachunter said:

this is the bark from the first pic. The second is defiantly beech.  

The top pic is a black birch, and the bottom is an American Beech. The middle pic from the first post is a wild cherry. 

[Del Gue]

Apologies. I was looking  at Dteve D's picture not rechunter's original.

It appears to be  an elmas indicated by the rough bark.

 

[Pete Collin]

Rachunter,

I am a professional forester in western NY.  I made a video for my website about tree ID.  You may find it useful. 

As for your three trees - they are: 1. American beech.  The rough bark would be from beech scale disease, which will make the bark go from smooth to very gnarled.  2.  Black cherry.  Black birch trees look similar, but the leaves won't be as narrow as cherry and the bark will peel horizontally on the birch trunk.  When in doubt, break a green twig and smell.  Birch smells like wintergreen, cherry smells like dirt.  3.  Witch hazel.  That is an understory tree (not mentioned in my video) that in the early fall may have little two-lobed nuts on them.  I haven't seen any witch hazel with nuts this year, may be the drought kept them from forming.

[dbHunterNY]

12 hours ago, mjac said:

1.American  Beech    2. Black Cherry   3. White Ash

nailed it

[Pete Collin]

18 hours ago, rachunter said:

this is the bark from the first pic. The second is defiantly beech.  

The tree in your first picture of this post is yellow birch.  you already figured out the beech.

[dbHunterNY]

I thought the third picture in the original post was white ash.  now that witch hazel is put on the table I do see the slight difference in shape of the leaves.  we have ash on the property but witch hazel I'm not so sure.  unless it looks and splits like ash.

[Pete Collin]

11 minutes ago, dbHunterNY said:

I thought the third picture in the original post was white ash.  now that witch hazel is put on the table I do see the slight difference in shape of the leaves.  we have ash on the property but witch hazel I'm not so sure.  unless it looks and splits like ash.

That third tree couldn't be an ash, because ash has a compound leaf, consisting of 5-7 lobes per leaf.  Also, ash trees have what's called an opposite twig pattern.  Meaning if you take a leading branch or twig, the twigs will grow in pairs a mirror image of each other.  (in my video I show what I mean by this).  The branch in the picture has an alternate pattern, meaning that a leaf or twig will grow first on one side, then the other, and back again all along the length of the twig.

[dbHunterNY]

learn something new everyday and tree ID is definitely not in my wheel house.  something I've realized I should work on.

[growalot]

Still sticking with choke cherry could be wrong...Now as far as video... Great. That said. your saying you can't mistake the shag bark hickory, well to someone starting out I think...on bark alone mind you, a eastern hophorn near a shag bark hickory...they could get confused...IMO

[Pete Collin]

5 minutes ago, growalot said:

Still sticking with choke cherry could be wrong...Now as far as video... Great. That said. your saying you can't mistake the shag bark hickory, well to someone starting out I think...on bark alone mind you, a eastern hophorn near a shag bark hickory...they could get confused...IMO

A shagbark hickory has a compund leaf.  A hophornbeam has a single leaf.  You usually see nuts and/or husks around the base of a hickory.  I have seen hophornbeam (also known as ironwood) get to be about 14 inches on the stump, but in general it is a small understory tree, growing to be about the thickness of a baseball bat.  Shagbark can get to be 3 foot through.

[rachunter]

Thanks for the video. Would fertilizeing the beech nut help them produce nuts.  

[Pete Collin]

Beech isn't highly regarded as a wildlife tree.  They do produce nuts, but only once every 5-7 years (as opposed to oak that put acorns out every other year).  Also, the twigs are no good as browse.  I would nurture hickory or oak (if you have them) rather than worrying about beech.  They put out a jillion root sprouts, tend to take over a woods.

[growalot]

Quote

on bark alone mind you, a eastern hophorn near a shag bark hickory.

That is why I said bark alone...ours are WAY bigger than base ball bats and the younger ones have long ,although much thinner thickness wise than the shag hickory, peeling bark. I should have been more specific put two young trees side by side  no leaf cover a novice could be confused...I just took these pics of a small hophorn in the hedge row. the quote contains a mature shag bark hickory...

Quote

 

[Pete Collin]

growalot,  I see what you mean!  That ironwood is exceptionally shaggy!  One way to tell is that the twigs of a hophornbeam are very wispy and slender in comparison to hickory (or anything else).

[growalot]

OK.... not trying to be contrary here...honestly.... but my property is loaded with beech...now my driveway is lined in beech...sorry, these in my driveway produce some nuts every year and tons of nuts every other or 2 years ...no getting around it...for one thing, I talk about it nearly every year on here... Now  I have found that once they get the canker  they produce more..I assumed stress causing the production. We have many many smooth barked beech ...they usually do not get sick until they have some good size to them. Also I would like to mention on our 200 red oaks the younger or lower leafs tend to have some with rounded edges while the rest are basically normal pointed red oak leafs.

[Pete Collin]

Oaks with rounded leaves are white oak.  Red oaks have pointed.  All oak trees are incredibly valuable to deer and turkey.  Far more than beech.  A whole stand of beech won't necessarily produce nuts at once.  that 5-7 years is a tree-by-tree thing.

[growalot]

All of our iron wood here and down at camp in Alfred look the same or shaggier... We have a very smooth barked(even large mature trees) pig nuts here and shag bark hickories at camp...some time marking future nut trees(young) from the iron wood is hard...looking at a distance.

[growalot]

Again Pete, I thought I was specific... We have 200 red oaks ...there are no white oaks on our place...ZERO, what I said was, some of the lower branched leafs are rounded on these reds with the REST of them all looking like normal red oak leafs. These are not the best examples...by far.... but these are the ones I have near the house with low enough leafs to get pics of...Yes pointed but rounder that the natural cut leaf of these oaks. Not all young oaks are like this. Many, the leafs are all "normal" and some have mixed leafs of no points with the pointed cut leaf.

[Pete Collin]

Not sure what you mean by rounded here.  Any leaf that lives its life in the shade will have less thickness and more width than one that recieves full exposure to the sun all day, even if on the same tree.

[dbHunterNY]

1 hour ago, Pete Collin said:

A shagbark hickory has a compund leaf.  A hophornbeam has a single leaf.  You usually see nuts and/or husks around the base of a hickory.  I have seen hophornbeam (also known as ironwood) get to be about 14 inches on the stump, but in general it is a small understory tree, growing to be about the thickness of a baseball bat.  Shagbark can get to be 3 foot through.

are there any reason to keep iron wood?  I know we do have quite a bit of that.  not sure as though we burn it.  fence posts are usually locust.  have a lot of that in pockets too.

[growalot]

With out the better examples too difficult to explain...Someday I'll get the camera out and take pictures of what I'm seeing ...most of the stand is down hill from the house...We are just now getting a good growth of them on this side of the road...although we have a few giants scattered on this side.

[Pete Collin]

Well dbHunter, I can now tell you this story about a client, since he has passed away.  He said to me, "I've shot a lot of turkeys.  A LOT of turkeys.  In more than just spring and fall.  Hear what I'm getting at?  Try and guess what the number one kind of food I've found in their crops?"  I made my guess, whatever it was.  My client told me that they ate more hophornbeam catkins (those little seed pod things they drop) than any other kind of food.

So, food for thought, as it were.

[growalot]

db,

I've mentioned before that the deer here will stand on their hind legs fore ever just to be able to reach the fall clusters of hophorn seed...Now whether the hophorn produce a bunch of mast or not they become a candy store when in seed. the one I took the picture of is right next to the dogs kennel and the deer hang there non stop until the seed clusters are gone. I also had the DEC tree guys  point to my hophorns and say..." you want turkey? don't cut those"

PS...have you noticed my turkey pics?

Edited October 19, 2016 by growalot

[dbHunterNY]

8 minutes ago, growalot said:

db,

I've mentioned before that the deer here will stand on their hind legs fore ever just to be able to reach the fall clusters of hophorn seed...Now whether the hophorn produce a bunch of mast or not they become a candy store when in seed. the one I took the picture of is right next to the dogs kennel and the deer hang there non stop until the seed clusters are gone. I also had the DEC tree guys  point to my hophorns and say..." you want turkey? don't cut those"

PS...have you noticed my turkey pics?

in hind sight as a kid is was always building low treestands in them.  dad didn't care about putting nails in those trees and I always thought they were in good spots.  I suppose I was thinking more woody browse and not the seed.  I know a lot about deer and less about habitat.  one of the things I'm working on due to my involvement in deer hunting related stuff here in NY.

[growalot]

The original stands at camp were all in iron wood trees....deer travel that area non stop...beech, apple, iron wood, oak and shag bark....It makes a heck of a fire wood ...but is hell on the chain saws...we never cut it until snow was on the ground...I remember those blue sparks shooting from the saw...lol

Edited October 19, 2016 by growalot