I posted on your Plant ID forum thread; here is my reply. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/namegal/msg0121502231960.html?15 That's probably Red Mulberry (Morus rubra) given the very limited information provided. wgreenlee1 could assist by saying WHERE these plants are growing. From your post here on Trees, I'm going to surmise Missouri - where Red Mulberry would be perfectly at home. I am pretty sure that there are no Tilia sp. with this kind of bark characteristics. It doesn't fit any of the birches either. Not even close on poplar or cottonwood (Populus sp.). Since these plants have been observed by you over a long period of time, I'm certain you would have observed Tilia flowers in passing. You should have seen Mulberry flowers, too - whether male or female. This tree is plenty old to have flowered. Those leaves look large enough, within the range of morphology, and appear coarse enough (along with the written description) to fit right in with Red Mulberry. Lobed leaves are just one expression of Mulberry species leaves, but not the only expression. Your location is significant in answering your question, and additional images of the dormant features like buds, stems, and - be still my heart - the WHOLE tree, make a huge difference in offering lucid opinions to the identity of this tree. Here's an old Red Mulberry trunk for comparison.

Okay thanks! I know in Japan they call them Sugi, but I wasn't sure if we called them the same.

I have a tree which has self-seeded right on the fence line. I suspect it'll be a weed but would like to know what it is before I yank it out. It has large, mid green cordate leaves, small white flowers which lead to round green fruit which have the look of olives. It was grown quite fast (another reason I suspect it'll be a weed...my plants NEVER grow that fast) I'll be putting a photo in the gallery. any help would be appreciated? thanks BTW does anyone know of a database that I could use to maybe ID it?

I still think it was you but don't remember that much if kids were there. Wife black straight hair? Last Saturday at the Devonian gardens we talked about prunus Siberica and thought it to be a rather minor deviation of prunus Manchirica. Even though Siberica is likely to carry over the pink I still have one reserved thought that Robert Purvis knows of about Siberica. That it is an incredibly slow grower and is dwarf. Robert used to live in Alaska and in Idaho still does nothing but apricot in one of his collections in Washington. Gabe Botar was at the gardens who is another person knowing a great deal about apricot. He had scions of a prolific dwarf apricot with small good tasting fruits that he produced from crossed parents. Good stuff because slow growing and dwarf is always great for extreme cold or unprotected sites. For example flowering under the snow would delay bloom and escape the damaging spring frosts. If Clair Lammers (formerly from Edmonton) from Alaska ever grew Gabes apricot he would at least had fruits from this where all other his Manchurica experiments failed. My grandfather may have been around as a retired forester at the time those were planted and lived very close by. Only a remote possibility exists. I came across the trees a few years ago because I wanted to visit my childhood memories of the wading pool that still there in that place and not that anybody told me. Who ever planted them it seems very possible it was done from self pollinated Goldcot seeds similar the way you collected from the pink tree the seeds for another generation.