Hey, Hippie, Young seedlings have a tendency not to abscise "on time". Maybe for several years of their youth. Dunno why. Could be their quest for youthful freedom from adult trees' genetic dictation that "You have to shed your leaves!" (Ain't happenin', establishment! Far out, out'a sight!). Been there, done that. Personally, I never abscised. Seriously, this pic is of a 4-5 year old northern red oak in the neighbor's yard, undoubtedly a seedling from my yard's red oak as there are no other red oaks in the neighborhood. I have several red oak seedlings in the yard that this year also held their leaves over the winter, but the "momma" defoliates every year. Maybe they don't abscise because as young trees they are still trying to grow when the heavy frost hits and the abscission layer doesn't have a chance to form? I've seen this a billion times - eventually the trees, not just oaks, begin to abscise like all the others and get nekked in the fall...wait - wasn't that something that youth used to do, hippie? LOL

Thank you everyone! I will take another photo soon when I have the light (I am getting home late tonight, and it will be dark by then -- otherwise I'd post one tonight!). In the future I'll take pictures of the tree/branches too, in addition to the lead. Also, I'll try to position a white board behind the tree to isolate the tree for the photo I do think it is tupelo now that Ken, Dave, and Ed have chimed in. I found this photo online (6th down) http://www.carolinanature.com/trees/nysy.html I didn't know that tupelo grew toothed leaves! Did some more looking into it, and I found a few pictures where toothed leaves appeared at the bottom of trees growing in the shade. I am actually a big fan of tupelo. I found two at Lowe's last year and bought them. Haven't seen any since. I won't try to transplant the little seedlings though because of the taproot.

5x7 seems awfully small. The roots of anything you plant will quickly fill that area and begin to grow into the surrounding soil, under the paving. We have a Trident maple in our yard, planted as a tiny seedling about thirteen years ago. It was selected from a collection of volunteers from a gorgeous mother tree and we hoped that the gene pool was a strong one. We crossed our fingers for a great natural infrastructure or beautiful fall color.....we got both. The seedling was about two feet tall when I transplanted it into a bark based potting medium to grow for a year before planting it in our side yard. It was about three feet tall when planted in the ground. It's now approx. 30 feet tall by 25 feet wide, with a diameter of 14 inches. (I asked my husband to go out and look.) We plant directly into hard, red Alabama clay soil with no irrigation under two to three inch layer of mixed wood mulch that we increase the radius of every year as the tree shades out more of the lawn. It does get watered during periods of serious drought, maybe a handful of times a year, at most. I live in Northern Alabama (6b-7a), with coldish winters and I consider this a pretty sunny part of the country.....certainly not gloomy. There are no visible surface roots and no driveway buckling. I asked my husband about the mature Tridents where he works and he said that there are no pesky surface roots. He's the Director of Horticulture and Landscaping at a local university in our city, so notices those kinds of things. However, all bets are off regarding behavior of any kind considering that very small planting site.

To settle the question of the genus try looking at the pith: http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=10460