Don't know if anyone can answer this but everywhere in South King County there's what appears to be Japanese maples growing. As fall colors change they increasingly stand out in brilant red. Along road sides, small patches of undeveloped land and even developed properties I see them. The leaves have approxmently 7 lobes and roughly the outside diameter and area of a human palm. Anyways, these things are EVERYWHERE and seem to have taken the slot where Red Alder might grow. Any ideas on what they are? I don't recall the PACNW haveing any redish-like fall color trees and i must admit they look nice. I'll try to take pics soon! EDIT: looks like Acer circinatum - could it be a native?
That makes sense. Hard to believe this thing is a native. It really doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the PACNW deciduous trees.
Maybe you've seen too many bigleaf maples, black cottonwoods and red alders. Cascara buckthorn, black hawthorn, Pacific dogwood and Oregon crabapple can all have nice fall color as well.
Well, Washington is lucky. We get the wild black locust tree. Which I thought was pretty in a field. But when we moved to where we live now. I do not appreciate them anymore. My neighbor has them growing wild on his acre close to the creek and all the seed pods fall on my property and if you don't get the trees when they are itty bitty, they are a monster to get rid of. I do love the cultured Honey Locust tree of which we have a few and I even planted one.
