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yovargas
Post subject: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 1:08 am
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(This is a continuation of a discussion that started here. It seemed like too much trouble move that stuff to a new thread and I did and want to fill up that thread with these pictures.)

OK, so I got some pics of the tree that I was trying hardest to identify. I am keeping the pictures large for clarity's sake:

A couple pics of the tree in general:
[ img ]
[ img ]

This pic gives the clearest view of what I'm almost completely certain are bipinnate/twice-pinnate leaves:
[ img ]

A couple closeups of the small, saw-toothed leaflets:
[ img ]
[ img ]


And some pics of the cool rough markings that the younger branches have:
[ img ]
[ img ]

Haven't found any trees that match this. Can anybody help ID it?


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 1:56 am
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This would be a lot of trees to browse through, but you could try here for a match.

http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/view ... mit=Search

Are you sure this isn't a tree of heaven? :suspicious:

Or what about this, Ailanthus: http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/enla ... geID=20040

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:D Okay, those are the same thing. :whistle: See? I'm determined it's a tree of heaven.

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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 2:07 am
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I'm copying what I said in the other thread, so I can find the links when I need them:
laureanna wrote:
Hey Yov! I've been bit by the botany bug as well! Trees are tough to figure out when they aren't producing some sort of very distinctive seedpod or leaf. Shrubs are even worse. What has worked for me is to start with a few families that have very distinctive features, and get to know them, then move on to the weirder ones. The pea family is a great one - just about anything with a pea-pod like seed, or with a "wings banner and keel" flower (sweet pea, clover, redbud, locust). Or a puff-ball flower (Acacia, mimosa). Most have lots of little leaves (pinate). Some members of the pea family:
Sweet Acacia: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ACFA
Eastern Redbud: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CECAC
Purple Locust: http://lyra.ifas.ufl.edu/TREESServlet?c ... ssoid=4034

Note that the links I'm giving you allows you to search by state, plant family, or whatever.
Here is a general identifier:
http://www.arborday.org/trees/whattree/ ... ItemID=E6A

Also, if you are looking at street trees, talk to your friendly neighborhood public works department and find out if they have a master tree plan that tells them to plant certain trees on certain streets. That may help you to identify some of them. For example, on some streets in my town, all the street trees are London Plane Trees (also called Sycamores). After seeing a few dozen of them, and looking at their bark at various sizes (it changes as they grow) and their branching patterns, I can now identify London Plane Trees elsewhere. If the public works people won't help, try going to a botanical garden, where everything is labeled. It's like learning a new language, so you may want to just learn a few each time (and going with the plant family analogy, learning what's in the pea family is like learning a very basic root of a word, then discovering all the other words that use that basic root).

I suppose we could start a new thread and really get going on this subject. :roll:

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 2:13 am
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The tree as a whole looks similar. But it lacks the toothy leaves:
[ img ]

Plus mine has that neato fanned out bi-pinnate leaf structure like this:
[ img ]

This is tuff! (But fun :))


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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 3:12 am
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Yov, I've seen trees of heaven near my house, and that doesn't look like one. The leaves and the general habit are quite different. Here's a close-up of the leaves:
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/aial1.htm

What you have is bi-pinnately compound, or compound odd-pinnate, depending on whom you talk to, and the leaves are completely toothed.

Can you give me a few more hints about it:
1. Does it have any stickiness on the front, back or edge of the leaf?
2. Does it have a distinct aroma when crushed?
3. Can you find any old seed pods around the base of the tree?
4. Are the leaves at all hairy, fuzzy or suede-like?

My guess is that it is not a box elder (though very close), black walnut, or ash. Can't figure out what it is. But I'll keep looking.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 3:48 am
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It didn't look like a box elder to me at all. I don't think it looks like an ash or black walnut either (at least not an ash species I'm familiar with here in Ohio). That's the tricky thing. I know Ohio trees, but you've got those weird tropical species down there in Florida!

That bark is very distinctive.

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 1:11 pm
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It's definitely not a black walnut, but it kinda looks like a pecan but toothier. I do know that pecans that grow in the south are a different variety from those that grow where I live.

:shrug:

I'm no help...
I'd guess some kind of nut tree, though, since it resembles pecans, walnuts and hickories.

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ToshoftheWuffingas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Tue 07 Jul , 2009 6:19 pm
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I'm not so familiar with trees from the Florida climate but it looks like an acacia to me.
Are there thorns or spiky bits anywhere?

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Wed 08 Jul , 2009 12:27 am
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Gee, this is a lot more fun with friends around. :)
LalaithUrwen wrote:
I know Ohio trees, but you've got those weird tropical species down there in Florida!
Yet another thing to make this whole thing tricky is that I don't know if these plants are native are not. While walking around trying to identify trees yesterday, I noticed that there were certain trees evenly spaced around each side of my apartment complex - one side had the bottlebrush trees, another had these - so I definitely know that they're planted, not naturally occurring. . If the bottlebrush trees were brought all the way from Australia, who knows where this other tree is from! I'm guessing Zimbabwe. :shrug:
laureanna wrote:
What you have is bi-pinnately compound, or compound odd-pinnate, depending on whom you talk to, and the leaves are completely toothed.
My book calls them bi-pinnate. It doesn't seem like there are tons of trees with bi-pinnately leaves which you would think would make it easier to narrow down but my book only has two that are both bi-pinnate and toothed.
laureanna wrote:
Can you give me a few more hints about it:
1. Does it have any stickiness on the front, back or edge of the leaf?
2. Does it have a distinct aroma when crushed?
3. Can you find any old seed pods around the base of the tree?
4. Are the leaves at all hairy, fuzzy or suede-like?
Nope, nope, nope, and nope. And no spiky bits either, Tosh. The texture and smell are both standardly leafy. I did notice two more distinct things though. One is that the leaves all grow in bunches at the end of the branches. Aside from the big bunches at the end, the branches are completely bare.
And second, I noticed that there are a lot of what looked like dangling bunches of small, still very unripened fruits:

[ img ]

[ img ]


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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Wed 08 Jul , 2009 1:39 am
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Golden Rain Tree, also called the Pride of India, Koelreuteria paniculata.

http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages ... s/kopa.htm

or the Koelreuteria bipinnata AKA Chinese flame tree or Chinese golden-rain tree

http://www.hsu.edu/default.aspx?id=6384

or the Chinaberry, Melia azedarach

http://www.hsu.edu/default.aspx?id=6398

Those fruit you just located, on closer examination, should tell you which of these it is.

:flowerthrow:

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Wed 08 Jul , 2009 2:18 am
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:D :kiss:

Oh, this is so tough, but from looking through a ton of the google images the branches just don't look right. I'm going to take a closer look tomorrow at the other four or five we have here to make sure but I think they'll have that distinct branch a look and structure and I'm just not seeing it in any of the pictures. It looks like I'll probably have to wait and see what happens with the fruit to know for sure!


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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 17 Jul , 2009 3:01 am
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A storm knocked down my tree!! :bawl:


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 17 Jul , 2009 7:03 pm
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:( That sucks! :(

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Estel Dúnadan
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 27 Nov , 2009 2:12 am
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If you'll excuse me jumping into an old thread, I think it's a prickle-bomb tree. I don't know what the official name is, but there are millions of them here in Melbourne. Since your other trees are from Australia, it's likely this one was too.

Is the fruit sort of prickly? If you have any dry ones, are they open in lots of small holes, and still prickly?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 27 Nov , 2009 3:14 am
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Oh, I hope yovi sees your response. I'd like to know what the tree is.

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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 27 Nov , 2009 5:12 am
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I tried to google "prickle bomb tree" and all I got was this thread. :LMAO:

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Fri 27 Nov , 2009 3:10 pm
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:D

That reminds me of the joke we just pulled off on my rather gullible 14-year-old. :D

Freddy's brother, Todd, started teasing Katie a long time ago about Paraguayan Venomous Ducks. Of course, this is totally made up, but we all went along with him. Katie didn't quite believe him but didn't quite disbelieve him either. So we've all been going along with this joke, and Katie doesn't know what to think. So Todd told her last night that he put a bunch of plastic spiders in her room; well, she didn't know whether to believe him on this or not either. This led to a perfect set up. Awhile ago, I had created a fake website for the Paraguayan Venomous Duck. :D And I had set Google on our computer to pull up this website first. So I said, "Well, look up the PVD, and if that's true, then you know that Uncle Todd is telling the truth about the spiders."

Here's what I wrote:

http://venomousduck.wordpress.com/

:LMAO: The best part was that when I was reading it out loud for the whole family, my dad and brother believed it, too! My dad's exact words were, "Is that right?" :LMAO:

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Estel Dúnadan
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Mon 30 Nov , 2009 2:54 am
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Ah, Lalaith! :LMAO: That your dad believed it too is amazing!

Oddly enough, I didn't think to Google for prickle-bomb trees. I tried it now, and found one reference in a book (and that on a .au site), but it's not helpful. It refers to "prickle-bomb wars against the boys", which is similar to playing conkers.

(Thank you, person on the other end of the phone, for finally understanding that maths problem.) Gilraen eventually becoming available, I asked her what a prickle-bomb tree is, and she said it's called liquid amber. Google that - it has good results!

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Mon 30 Nov , 2009 3:41 am
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Funny you bring this up now. I'd kinda given up my search but this Thanksgiving Day I finally caved and asked a knowleadgable frind of mine (I'd been hoping to fiure it out on my own). She said, rather confidently, that it's a Chinaberry Tree, which laurie had already guessed. I went and double checked and everything about the Chinaberry looks right except the flowers are nothing like that. So...I still don't know.

This tree IDing thing turned out to be more frustrating than it was worth. :suspicious:


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Botany
Posted: Mon 30 Nov , 2009 4:24 am
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Well, to be fair, if you're dealing with a non-native species, then that can be very frustrating.

But, if the pics I'm seeing are correct, then the liquid amber tree is what we call a sweetgum, and your tree is definitely not a sweetgum tree, yovi. Definitely not. Sweetgums have star-shaped leaves.

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