An arborist friend from Indiana, sent me two photographs of a tree he hopes to identify. I don't think he's ever seen it with leaves. Have no idea if it's indigenous or imported. He relayed the following from the homeowner ... I attached the originals reduced to show the form. I cropped and enlarged some parts from both photos that hopefully offer something recognizable to those who may be familiar with this. The bark looks very distinctive. A few twigs seem to show opposite nodes, but I'm not certain. I enlarged a couple of twigs or sprouts in front of the trunk, because the buds or twig ends stand out some (they even seem a bit purple if the image caught the colors right) Also, it looks like there's very obvious nodes or scars where leaves or rachis have detached, in various parts of the canopy. Does anyone recognize this tree from what's provided, or able to narrow down the possibilities .... thank you.
There are few leaves still hanging in the first photo. Look pretty large. Could this be an oak? The things on the branches in photo #4 look like cupules left after acorns fell off.
If there's lots of other trees nearby, I'm guessing maybe picking off the tree would be ideal. But I could ask him if something remains beneath. Attached is like a 200% enlargement of where some leaves showed in the photo. Not sure if it does much. But one in particular seems to have a somewhat simple leaf shape. There's not a lot clinging though. I'm curious if it's indigenous or not. If a tree had bark like that in our area, I'd probably be able to ID off just that. But I haven't a clue with this one. ..
To narrow things down some, which oaks have bark that look like that? I'm wondering if the "puff balls" comment by the tree's owner is slightly vague. Browsing images to see if any oaks have similar bark, the oak in the link below looked like it's bark was a little similar, but it has sort of acorns surrounded with puffies. http://www.ipfw.edu/native-trees/BurOakIconGallery.htm The twig tip buds look a lot like the crop I enlarged and posted earlier, too. Thoughts?
American Smoketree Apparently my friend was able to nail-down an ID, and says it's a Cotinus obovatus I found some bark images online, and the bark looks virtually identical. ...
