Hello I am new here and hoping I can have someone tell me what type of tree I have. It is on my property on the sunshine coast, BC. The closest I can find on the internet is a type of Sumac??maybe?? Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks I should add the first is a summer photo, the next is what is looks like in the late fall and seems to change throughout the growing season until all the leaves and the stems have left a mess all over!
So that isn't in the Sumac family? I googled Aralia elata and the photos do look the closest I have seen so far. My flowers are redish though, not white. Thanks for your reply, I will say that is what it is then!! Regards Alana
With those flower-heads definitely an Aralia. Now it's just a matter of which one. It won't be A. spinosa because that has a different inflorescence structure, with a central axis going up the middle. By far the most prevalent one in this area is A. elata, with the flowering habit like that of your clump.
I don't trust what I'm seeing displayed on a browser query, and even on the websites that come up, since I'm seeing what seem to show up for both species. @Ron B, would you be willing to link to photos that you know correctly show the structure for A. spinosa and A. elata? The inflorescences here look much smaller than what I usually see.
No central axis = not Aralia spinosa. When you see correct photos this third structural element being present and how it changes the overall shape is quite apparent.
Ah, thanks for editing your reply! I understand the words, but when I look at photos, I don't understand. Here are some photos named Aralia spinosa in which I'm not seeing the third structural element. How many of these are not correct? Or what am I not seeing? Aralia spinosa Arkansas - Aralia spinosa - Wikipedia Aralia spinosa (Angelica Tree, Devil's Walkingstick, Devil's Walking Stick, Hercules' Club, Hercules's Club, Hercules's-Club, Prickly Ash, Prickly Elder) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox (ncsu.edu) Aralia spinosa - Plant Finder (missouribotanicalgarden.org), particularly www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/FullImageDisplay.aspx?documentid=100992 I think this one demonstrates what you're saying: Aralia spinosa (Hercules'-club): Go Botany (nativeplanttrust.org)
Great pix, Silver surfer. I love the third photo with all those spines, though the adult leaves don't seem to be armed.
You can't see the internal structure when the Aralia spinosa pictures are such comparatively distant views. That's because - in addition to the distance from which the reader is looking - their additional branching gives them a density that Aralia elata does not have, with its individual inflorescence branches all springing instead directly from the ends of its vegetative branches. Click on the hyperlinked term panicle in the Wikipedia account you linked to for a diagram and discussion of the type of inflorescence Aralia spinosa produces.
