Tree Identification - northern New Jersey

Please identify the tree whose eight photos, taken in September, are shown here:

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the web-page is not accessible, please go to:
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select the "plant-25" album.

The leaves are simply toothed and opposite. The twig has a pair of opposite leaves, then a second pair perpendicular to the first, then a third pair aligned as the first pair and so on. What is such an arrangement named?

The flat, long fruit, shown in pic-2, looks somewhat like a smaller version of green-ash fruit.

Thank you.

Reply to
swim learning
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Thats definitley a green ash, Fraxinus americana. There are only a handful of trees that grow in your area that have opposite leaves, and the fruit is a dead giveaway.

Toad

Reply to
Marley1372

From what little I know:

Fraxinus Americana is White Ash. Green Ash is Fraxinus Pennsylvanica.

Nevertheless, while the Ash has opposite leaf-pairs, adjacent alternate leaf-pairs are not perpendicular to each other. The ash leaf-pairs are all in the same plane. In my photos you may be able to notice that adjacent pairs of leaves twisted on the twig by 90 degrees.

Can you show me some online images of the leaves that show the leaves the way I have described them? Or please point me to a book.

Reply to
swim learning

I think you are both pretty close. I, too, believe it is an ash, most likely Fraxinus oxycarpa (or F. angustifolia ssp. oxycarpa, if you prefer) if the leaf pairs are whorled. I agree with Toad - the fruit is hard to argue with.

pam - gardengal

Reply to
Pam - gardengal

I am adding the newsgroup sci/bio/botany to the thread. Toad and Pam are suggesting the tree is a Fraxinus Oxycarpa (Raywood Ash). Pictures of Raywood Ash show the leaf-pairs in a single plane while the tree in my photos have adjacent leaf-pairs perpendicular to each other. Please clarify.

Reply to
swim learning

Opposite-decussate. That's generally true of most plants with opposite leaves.

More likely, you're looking at the leaflets making up a compound leaf typical of most ash species. Yours has simple leaves.

while the tree in

The fruits in your photo very clearly seem to be those of an ash [genus Fraxinus], but nearly all ashes have compound leaves divided into leaflets.

Your tree, on the other hand, seems to have simple, toothed leaves. I'd thought that the only simple-leaved ash species was _Fraxinus anomala_ from the southwest, but its foliage appears rather different from yours:

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that one commonly cultivated form of _Fraxinus excelsior_ [European Ash] has simple leaves. That's my best guess as to the identity of your mystery tree.

cheers

Reply to
mel turner

That guess seems to be correct.

See

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a seeming very close match of your plant in _Fraxinus excelsior "Hessei"

cheers

Reply to
mel turner

mel turner schreef

I'd thought that the only simple-leaved ash species was _Fraxinus anomala_ from the southwest, but its foliage appears rather different from yours:

[European Ash] has simple leaves. That's my best guess as to the identity of your mystery tree. ***** I remember that Fraxinus angustifolia 'Monophylla' also has simple leaves (compound leaves with a single leaflet). As can be read from the name this is a fairly old cultivar. Its leaves will be rather more narrow. PvR
Reply to
P van Rijckevorsel

Has normally smaller leaves, see

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lot of ashes photos can be found here:

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Reply to
Zeitkind

Zeitkind schreef

  • * *
1) ash has leaflets 2) according to my dendrology text the leaflets of F.angustifolia 'Monophylla' are twice the size of F.angustifolia and actually bigger than those of a typical F.excelsior 3) I never suggested that this is the identity of the 'mystery tree' PvR
Reply to
P van Rijckevorsel

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