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mysterytree

Can you help me ID these Mystery Trees?

mysterytree
12 years ago

Hello there!

I'm hoping that you guys will be able to ID a tree that's been a complete mystery to my family and me for several decades. I live in Upstate New York, a zone 6. The trees are quite tall, and are among the tallest on our property. I think that they must have pretty hard wood because I've never seen one snap or split in the ice storms and wind storms we get around here (compared to the soft boxelders). They're not very big around, especially considering their height. The trees seem to be only in this one area, and not throughout the rest of the surrounding woods. I've never seen them anywhere other than my yard.

Here are some photos I took this afternoon:

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An example of the trees in question

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Here are the tops of several of them.

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Shots of the leaves

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The bark

Finally, the weirdest part of these trees is the pods they produce at the end of the summer. They're smooth, mostly flat, dark brown, and shaped like a kidney bean. Inside is this sticky yellow gunk and between three and five smooth, round seeds. They haven't grown this year yet, but I did some googling and discovered that the Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) has similar pods:

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The pods I'm familiar with are flatter than these, though.

So! What do you guys think?

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