We just bought a house outside of DC, and we're trying to identify some trees in our back yard. It looks to be some kind of maple, but I'm not sure which kind. It's just started to bloom here, so the leaf is young.
For trees with leaves like these, it helps to see a stem with several leaves, to see if the leaves are opposite (maples) or alternate (what we call sycamore, not to be confused with sycamore maples). People who are good at this might be able to tell anyway, but for me, I always need to check that.
Someone on another forum told me silver maple, which does seem to be common around here. Can anyone verify?
Acer saccharinum...silver maple is easy to id. The name comes from the back of the leaves which are silver. https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/udata/r9ndp23q/trees/acer-saccharinum-front-5.jpg
First, let's see a photo of a branch showing several leaves for us to confirm that they are opposite on the branch. If so, I'll move this to the Maples forum. Do you have any flower photos? Samaras? These do look like very tall trees, but you did get one branch, just didn't show us the part of it I would want to see.
I had a tall person help me get the leaf, but don't think I can reach a branch on my own. :-) The ones at the bottom are so sparse, anyway, it's hard to tell. My best guest is that they're opposite but it's hard to confirm.
I was able to get a new leaf and the underside does look silver. I'm convinced! Thanks everyone for the help!
