Solved!!!!!!....Gum Bumelia. What is This?

[WDH]

Found in Texas courtesy of Tcsmpsi, but is generally widespread.

Whatisit?

[Radar67]

Is it Buckthorn?

Stew

[Texas Ranger]

Tight eye, titi?

[WDH]

Negatory on both accounts.  Here is another clue...........It sometimes has thorns on the branches, sorta like a plum (but it is not a fruit tree so any type so don't go there).   Also, the leaves feel real velvety.

[Radar67]

Okay, is it in the oak family, maybe a live oak? I'm learning as I go here, and it is fun.

Stew

[WDH]

Nope, not an oak.  Some more pics.  Here is one of the thorns.




Two more clues:

1).  The flowers are axillary. That is, the flowers form in little clusters at the base of each leaf stalk (petiole).

2).  Some of the older growth has short shoots.  These are very small very short little branches from which the leaves occur in a whorled or twirling (that is NOT a botanical term) cluster.

I have only one clue left .

Axillary (associated with the leaf petiole) flowers:



This photo shows axillary flowers as well as the short shoot whorls:



Note the 3 leaves in a cluster on the left side of the photo that all originate from the same point on the stem.  That is a short shoot whorl.

[Radar67]

I'll give someone else a chance, the only other thing close in my ID Book is Hopps.

Stew

[WDH]

Last clue (probably won't help much.........sorry).

The bark:

[solodan]

I am gonna take a wild guess.  Lets see, thorns and flowers at base of the leaf.... I know I can't be right cause  Radar 67 is in Mississippi and the state flower there is the tree I was thinking.....could it be Magnolia ??? ???

[WDH]

Nope.  I guess y'all will have to sleep on it.................................

[Weekend_Sawyer]

Is it a tupelo? that bark kinda looks like it. I have some large ones that are all den trees.

Jon

[WDH]

Jon,

You are warmer than anyone else, but sill pretty cold.  The bark does look like tupelo, but it is not tupelo or black gum because they do not have thorns and axillary flowers.  If y'all don't get it by Sunday, I try to come up with more clues. 

I will say this.  Like tupelo and black gum, the fruit is a blue/black drupe about the size of a marble ( a drupe is a fruit with a hard stone-like seed like a cherry).

[flip]

Locust?

[Texas Ranger]

Let's see, there are some 1700 sub species of this plant, a large number of which, perhaps a majority, of the supposed species are 'asexual apomictic triploids'.

How's them apples, Dan?  Do I win the roses?

[DanG]

TR, ain't nobody gonna send no roses to an old crab like you. :

[Texas Ranger]

Crab apples, maybe?  If I'm right on the plants, one of em makes real good wine and jelly.

[Tom]

You "may" be right and you "may" be wrong, but Haw!, you are going to be a thorn in WDH's side.  :D :D

[Bro. Noble]

Tom,  What are you trying to tell us?  You think that's one of 'gum bemelia's ' relatives?

[Tom]

I don't know what it is, Br'er Noble.  What I think it is it ain't, What I thought it were, it tweren't.  the leaves leave me questioning.  Are they smooth or serrated?  I've nailed it down to as many things as there are in the book.  That bulemic what'cha-ma-callit, I never heard of, A hawthorn has different leaves, Olive leaves questions, Ogeechee tupelo just ain't quite right.  One thing is for sure, WDH is right.  The bark didn't help a bit.  :D

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like Indian-cherry (yellowwood), a species of buckthorn. Rhamus caroliniana  ???

[tcsmpsi]

Hmmmm.....I finally recognized something, from a Missourian I believe, that hinted a note of familiarity in some of that genus mortimus legitimus.    :D

[DanG]

Aahhhhh!  I love a good mystery.  I'm gonna go with my gut and say the butler did it. ;D

[WDH]

Solved!!

Bro. Noble wins the prize............This is Gum Bumelia, Bumelia lanuginosa.  Good going, Bro. Noble 8).

[SwampDonkey]

Your leaves and flowers look different than this source.

http://www.noble.org/imagegallery/woodhtml/Chittamwood.html

Maybe it's because the leaves have just emerged and have not thickened. The flowers seem to be in clusters. This what you guys call 'ironwood' down there?

[Bro. Noble]

That looks like our 'gum bumelia' and ours grows in the sites described.  What we call iron wood grows along the creeks.  There are two similar species that are locally called ironwood,  other names are muscle wood,  blue beech, & hopp hornbeam.  Dad tried to teach me the difference in the two species,  but I can't memember them.  I did remember gum bumelia,  however.  You ever stack the nasty brush from one and you don't forget them :D :D

[WDH]

I agree with Bro. Noble.  Ironwood is usually used to refer to american hornbeam(Carpinus caroliniana) and eastern hophornbeam (Ostrya virginia).  Hornbeam has the very smooth gray bark with flutes in the bark that look like muscles.  Hophornbeam bark is brown and very scaly.  Both are understory species.

The leaves of gum bumelia are very soft and velvety underneath.  The leaves are not hard and stiff like live oak.  It looks like that in your website, SD, but the leaves are actually pliable.

I have some other pics that I will post tomorrow.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah those hophornbeam can take over a sugar bush. You can start out with 20 hophornbeam on 10 acres and do some thinning in the stand, then before long you have 100,000's of them.  :

[tcsmpsi]

I agree with Bro. Noble.  Ironwood is usually used to refer to american hornbeam(Carpinus caroliniana) and eastern hophornbeam (Ostrya americana).  Hornbeam has the very smooth gray bark with flutes in the bark that look like muscles.  Hophornbeam bark is brown and very scaly.  Both are understory species.

The leaves of gum bumelia are very soft and velvety underneath.  The leaves are not hard and stiff like live oak.  It looks like that in your website, SD, but the leaves are actually pliable.

I have some other pics that I will post tomorrow.

They have mild, non-acidic, pleasant taste.  Unlike the ironwood family.    ;D

[WDH]

I posted the scientific name of hophornbeam wrong.  It is Ostrya virginia not Ostrya americana.

I have never liked the taste of ironwood either ;D.

You hit the nail on the head, SwampDonkey.  Hophornbeam is a very efficient colonizer on my property.  I burned a hardwood stand on my place 5 years ago.  Now the understory is a hophornbeam thicket .

[WDH]

My backyard gum bumelia is in full bloom.  The flowers cluster at the base of the leaf petiole.  The bees are loving it, too.



Sorry that the pic is blurry.