Hello,
I am looking for help identifying a tree located in South East Virginia. Virginia Beach to be specific. All that I have to ID this tree is what looks like a canoe shaped pod that I found on the ground.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/69359/20220203_190340.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1643932870)
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Google eastern redbud seed pods
Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
The eastern redwood pods seem to be very thin and papery. The pod that I found is pretty thick.
Any vines growing above where you found that? Looks like a trumpet plant pod to me.
Can you retake the picture with something like a $1 bill or such beside it for scale?
Redbud seeds are beans 3-4 inches long as I remember. I'd think maybe Catalpa but they are typically much longer and thinner than what I think I am seeing.
Is it in an urban/suburban area or growing in a more native area? I'm wondering if it might be an invasive/planted tree/shrub/plant.
We have some of those on a vine growing up in a Crepe Myrtle tree, but I'll have to look to see what type of vine it is. Might very well be a Trumpet Vine.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - The University of Texas at Austin (https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=cara2)
That's most likely one of our showiest wildflower vines, the Trumpet Creeper, as others have posted.
Great vine-hummingbirds love them. You can use any old tree as a trellis and train them and we've thought of using them in forest to keep trunks cool in shelterwood cuts where we leave high value trees behind and are afraid of epicormic sprouting.
Kudzu would give you better trunk surface coverage.
"Don't get out of the truck Jonah!"
But it was too late.
Back when they first introduced Kudzu, my best friends Father planted some to help feed his cows. He couldn't get it to grow. When he told me about that some years later, I told him it was a good thing he stuck to growing cows.
Kudzu is kind of like the bamboo the old man Dad bought his last house from. He was showing us around and he had bamboo/fishing canes growing everywhere including up through sheds and such. He said years before he'd gotten a piece of root stock from a neighbor and planted it one morning. He said he changed his mind at lunch and went back out to dig it back up but it was too late and had already gotten away from him.
If that pod actually came from the tree, I'd guess Kentucky coffee tree.