pls identify this mystery tree

11 years ago

I dug up a single, leafless stalk in the winter at my house in Virginia; I transplanted it and this spring it has leaves. It had popped up next to a hydrangea and a butterfly bush, but was not intentionally planted.

It's about two feet tall and east facing.

Can you help tell me what it is? I think it is a tree, but not certain!

Thanks!

(This is a cross post from the mid-atlantic forum.)

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Comments (7)

denninmi
11 years ago
Seedling ash of some kind.
farmboy1
11 years ago
Ditto, some kind of ash, I have a few of those I need to either remove or find new homes for. Wish I could figure out which it is.

vince
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newbieshelley
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks.
Is it common for ash trees to pop-up like this, I'm guessing from a seed transplanted by an animal?
denninmi
11 years ago
Yes, very common if you have trees nearby. The seeds ripen in the fall, and have a blade similar to a maple seed that makes them twirl like a propeller in the wind, so they can travel a ways during windy weather. I don't honestly know if animals eat them or not, I kind of suspect not only because I've never found clumps of ash seedlings in the same manner I find clumps of things like oak, hickory, or maple which are buried by squirrels and then not retrieved.
famartin
11 years ago
Hmm... it would seem to me that just because you don't see clumps of seedlings doesn't mean animals don't eat them. It would just mean they don't bury them for storage.
denninmi
11 years ago
Very true. Just speculating that if they were a food source for the tree rats, they would stash them like they do other things such as maple seeds, wild black cherry pits, etc.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
11 years ago
when you get out of small garden suburbia ... on some acres.. it is not uncommon to find all kinds of free range trees popping up everywhere ...

perhaps its an oddity to you.. simply because .. peeps with small gardens.. tend to clean up the messes trees drop ... so the odds of 'finding' them is so much greater ..

but one thing i can say ... if there is one.. there are others ... and i would not put high value on it.. just because it popped up ... that is how many of the worst trees get even worse ...

your seedling .. is at least 3 to 5 feet to close to that fence... and i am not sure.. that is a great tree.. to be overhanging the house.. in the decades to come.. but i am speculating on that.. and will defer to anyone who gets beyond the ID of 'some ash' ... you might want to try the NAME THAT PLANT FORUM.. if you dont get a full ID ... and let us know back here.. if you do

again.. just because it is a freebie.. does not mean it should be kept ...

ken