Tree I.D.

[Andy]

Wonder if anyone can help. I can identify every tree on my property, except one! Never saw the leaves because I just found it last week. Its about 35 or 40 ft. Has thick grey bark. It has catkins about 1/2" long in groups of three at the end of almost every twig. They point up. Twigs are alternating and the wood seems hard. Can anyone help? I suspect I will have better luck when the leaves come.

[Bud Man]

Andy    Sounds like a Yellow Birch but I'm a Southerner. Better let one of those Michigander fellers jump in and hep out  :D  

[Jeff]

Andy, is there any way to get us a picture?

Bark don't fit yellow birch, at least the ones growing arond here. Besides, it would still be easy to lump it in the birch family because there are some pretty close similarity in bark structure to even paper bark, at least enough to make the conection.

Did you say where you were from before? you should fill out yer profile. Your location will help.

[Bud Man]

Jeff  He's in Mio, Michiganderland  About 45 miles from Harrison.  You ought to drive out there buy Andy some coffee and give him a dendro walk through his 16 acres and ID all the trees.  We sho would ifn he lived that close to one of us Southerners  :

[Jeff]

I will be going up that way soon. Cedar-Eater's got a cedar log he's saving for me, and maybe a Cedar stump or two. I can go right through Mio either going or coming back.

[Jeff]

Could be a butternut.  Catkins are typical of aspens, willows, oaks, birches, butternuts, and walnuts.

Is the bark smooth or furrowed, if furrowed is it mildly or deeply furrowed. Not sure what you mean by heavy. American Beech is steeley gray but the bark is thin, but noticably different from its neighbors because of its texture, or lack of.

The more I think of the discription it could be a Northern Red Oak, but you should know that one, though some times the bark can be markedly different from tree to tree. I have seen it where it looked like aspen, almost painted on.

[Bud Man]

Walnuts and Oaks still sleeping, Aspen I'm not familiar with, thick gray bark--Nah not Beech, Catkins in groups of three It's a Michigander Birch of some sort  :P

[Ron Scott]

Mio also has a Michigan DNR office and USDA-Forest Service Ranger Station that can identify it for you. See Foresters Randy Marzolo, Dick Lord, or Wildlife Biologist Phil Huber at the USFS Ranger Station.

[SwampDonkey]

Sounds like a birch or hornbeam, only hornbeam points downward, and the seed is in a sac. Birch male catkins generally droop. Thick grey bark could be an old yellow birch (but silver birch phase). You see this difference even in ruffed grouse. Younger birch is thin barked.

Sounds like a species of willow, we have some here on wetter ground and also in hardwood ridges near sepages. They flower in April to May up here, but not in 3's. They call'm pussywillows and sometimes in fall if it turns real cold for a spell and warms up for a couple weeks in the 40's or warmer they can start growing from the bud prematurely.

Interesting tree you have