Source
r/botany•
TheHT

ID Request: Tree or Bush? [xPost]

Hello Reddit! Please help me figure out what this thing in my back yard is. Been there since at least 1988, kinda hard to tell from the one terrible pic I have of the whole thing, but it's about 20ft high. Leaves fall off in the winter. Was told recently that it was "probably a bush". This seems pretty tree-like for a bush.

Top Right Sorry for the edit and overall picture quality on this first image, not sure dude wants to be on the interwebs.

Most of a Branch Three "V" shaped branches. Seems there are mostly 5 V shaped sets of branches on each larger branch.

Stem with leaves

Leaf Top

Leaf Bottom

Edit: Also, it has smooth bark.

Edit 2: Added more pictures:

Imgur Album Link

I could not find any flowers or buds on the tree. If I'm remembering correctly, some time in the early spring, the tree has small white flowers, about the size or a marble or Lemonhead.

Also, I vaguely remember something like cubes, like little Japanese lanterns.

Posted May 20, 2012, 4:58 AM UTC · edited

513
FuzzyHappyBunnies•

You didn't give your location, which is very important.

Maybe an Aralia?

2
TheHTOP•

Ah, sorry about that! Central Florida (Daytona). Will be adding some more pictures in a bit here as well.

1
TheHTOP•

Just a heads up, have added some more pictures and info to the post.

The leaves look a bit thinner and lighter then an Aralia, or at least from what I can tell doing a Google Image search. I get all sorts of different results for Aralia, so I just went with the one that looked most correct

1
BettyMcBitterpants•

Could it be a sumac?

1
TheHTOP•

Leaves seem very close, the branches that the leaves are attached to here are much smaller though, and don't seem to have any bark on them

2
maedae•

Do you know what the flowers look like?

Have you tried r/whatsthisplant ?

1
TheHTOP•

I wish I had a photo of them, my memory is pretty crap on the matter. Have updated the post with more pictures and info. Have also XPosted to r/whatsthisplant

2
ironhorsefleshhorse•

What you are calling "stems with leaves" are actually just a single leaf. They are pinnately compound leaves each having several leaflets--what you are referring to as a "leaf". Each leaf, then, is born in an opposite arrangement up the stem. That is, for each leaf there is another leaf directly opposite it arising from the same branch. These are important identifying characteristics.

1
theroc1217_plants•

There is no biological delineation between trees and bushes. If you grow a tree from seed with no pruning, it will look like a giant bush. It you prune a bush like you do a tree, it will look like a small tree.

0
buddhainabucket•

This is generally correct, and I upvoted, but just to give a counter example: many trees are strictly trees- redwoods, for example. A shrub is generally a smaller woody perennial with a tendency towards multiple trunks. A tree can also have multiple trunks, but will often have a leader trunk. A shrub that is trained upright into the shape of a tree is called a standard.

3
theroc1217_plants•

But there is no true delineation between trees and shrubs. You can train a redwood into a shrub, bonsai artists do it all the time. But there's no set of features that all trees have and shrubs don't.

And to say a redwood won't bush out is difficult to confirm, since they are really only found in clusters, and as such strive upwards in competition for light. Oaks in a forest grow similarly and markedly different from a lone oak on a farm, one is growing upward reaching for light, and the other is growing out to produce as much leaf as possible to catch the light.

1
buddhainabucket•

You're right- actually, this is one of the reasons I've come to love bonsai so much. It's amazing how much variability you can get out of one set of genes, just by creating different environmental stressors.

1
TheHTOP•

TIL. I always thought of bushes as something under 10 feet, while trees are 30 or 40. I defer to Mitt Romney, I hear he's an expert at tree height.

0