Please help me ID this tree

ggeddis

I think this is a tree I got as a seedling from the Arbor Day Society. I planted it about 3 years ago. I think it's supposed to be a golden raintree, but we have quite a few mature raintrees in this area, and I have never seen this type of growth on them. It's never flowered so far, but it has put out leaves for two seasons before this one.

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Bowani Siam

I think your plant is the hilariously named Skunkbush Sumac, Rhus trilobata syn. R. aromatica. Could be a variety (eg var. trilobata). If so, it would seem you have had flowers. Success!


Look at the fourth plant down on this site:

http://bit.ly/h3a7aF

Cheers!

ggeddis

No, I don't think that's it. I have seen that plant before and there is quite a bit of it around here (North Carolina, US) along the roadsides. The pattern of the leaves (and the flowers) is quite different.

Bowani Siam

Hahaha ok, so what exactly do the leaves on your plant look like?

Eric Frei

Yeah, are those yellow things flowers? What are those cone shaped thing sticking out, spent flowers? Maybe some close up pics?

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ggeddis

I don't know what the yellow things are, maybe they're flowers. The cone shaped things appear in late winter. The yellow things seem to come out of there. This is the third season it's been planted and I think this is the first year I have seen those. I will take another picture and attach it when the weather clears up (we're under a tornado warning right now). The leaves are beginning to emerge, so that may provide some more clues.

ggeddis

I took these pictures this afternoon. You can see the leaves now that emerged after the "flowers?" Maybe this will make it clearer. You can also get a better idea of the size compared to the irises.

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Bowani Siam

From the photos the leaves look trilobed. I still think she looks like a Rhus. Rhus aromatica? Maybe var. serotina?

If you could get a close up of one leaf laid flat so we can see the detail that would be shweet!

Tornado? Ahhhh!

Brent Ferris

Could it be a currant?

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ggeddis

I don't think so. Or if it is, I have no idea where it came from. For additional perspective, this is a relatively new lot/house (2007) and I'm the first owner. It used to be a hill until they dynamited it to grade the lot. There were no trees on the lot except for some red maples that were planted by the builder. Since then we have added a few trees (a Japanese maple, a star magnolia and an eastern redbud) over the last three years. About 3 years ago I joined the Arbor Day Society and got their "10 free trees" offer for flowering trees. According to the web site they were:

2 White Flowering Dogwoods, 2 Flowering Crabapples, 2 Washington Hawthorns, 2 Eastern Redbuds, 2 Goldenraintrees.

They were basically twigs and we potted them. Most of them appeared not to have made it, but eventually three of them put out leaves and we put them in the ground. We were never able to be sure we had them labeled correctly, because the way they were sent, they were only identified by paint markers on the twigs and the colors were somewhat ambiguous, but I am sure this was one of them. I don't know where any other trees would have come from.

Small though they still are, I'm pretty sure one of them is the hawthorne and another is the crab apple although neither of them has ever flowered yet. This one certainly doesn't seem like any of those other listed trees, though, and I'm thinking it could have been somehow mis-labeled before it was shipped.

I am attaching some more pictures since the leaves are much more prominent today than they were Saturday (ain't spring wonderful?).

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Bowani Siam

haha the thing about deciduous plant propagation is the fact that you basically have a bunch of sticks in pots. It is very likely that the cuttings got mixed up, or perhaps just incorrectly labelled, as I am sure that this is your plant:

Rhus aromatica page

It closely resembles Rhus trilobata and the two species are sometimes treated as synonymous.

If you look at the catkins they match up to the 'cone' shaped things on your tree. Plus the leaf shape, margin, etc. The small green things are flowers.


Also, very sorry to see that at forty people (maybe more, hopefully not) were killed by the tornado. Hopefully that figure doesn't rise. Best of luck!

ggeddis

Yes the deaths are sad, indeed. We were fortunate that where we are situated we just got a lot of rain and some wind. But it was a frightening time.

I don't know how we would have gotten this tree, but after looking at some pictures (Rhus aromatica) I think you're right. I would wonder if this was just a "volunteer" except that I haven't seen this tree/shrub anywhere in my area before.

Anyway, thanks, I think you may have nailed it.