ID this tree - Ask Extension
This tree grew naturally over the past two years in my backyard. It's over 20 feet tall already so it's very fast growing. It's growing straight up....
Knowledgebase
ID this tree #318249
Asked May 02, 2016, 5:58 PM EDT
This tree grew naturally over the past two years in my backyard. It's over 20 feet tall already so it's very fast growing. It's growing straight up. I don't have any other trees like it in my yard or nearby. Could you help me identify it?
Salt Lake County Utah
Expert Response
It appears to be a cherry of some sort (in the Prunus genus). If you planted it and got it from a nursery it would be easier to ID. But since it is a volunteer (from seed), its genetics and its appearance could be pretty mixed up and may be nothing like the plant it came from. It could have come from a shoot that grew off of a root stock, for example, and it would have the rootstock's genetics. Actually the most common cherry I have found in Cache Valley is called Mahaleb cherry, which is never grown for its top but is the most common rootstock for grafted ornamental cherries. The reason they are so common here it that it is easy for someone to plant an ornamental cherry, to have it put out a shoot from below the graft (from the rootstock), and then at least part of your tree's crown is a Mahaleb cherry. Once it flowers and fruits then you have seeds for a Mahaleb cherry, which the birds eat, then....
So to know what you tree is may be hard, but watch for flowers or fruit and send me pictures, or send me a picture of the bark on the thickest trunk and one of the entire tree.
If I had to guess I would say maybe a European bird cherry because of the red petioles with two glands near the leaf blade and not very sharply pointed leaf serrations (teeth).
Mike Kuhns
So to know what you tree is may be hard, but watch for flowers or fruit and send me pictures, or send me a picture of the bark on the thickest trunk and one of the entire tree.
If I had to guess I would say maybe a European bird cherry because of the red petioles with two glands near the leaf blade and not very sharply pointed leaf serrations (teeth).
Mike Kuhns
Fantastic general overview and quick response! Thanks! Here are some additional photos. Pic6 of the bark is a bit washed out. The bark has a deeper reddish color than the photo shows. You can see the reddish color in pic7 if you look at the top of that photo. The pic of the whole tree is hard to make out, but you can see it's narrow and growing very tall very fast. I'd say it has to be 25 ft or more already and it's only a few years old. I cannot see any nearby trees that it could have seeded from. Also, the other trees back in the same area have pretty much naturalized. We planted none of them so I don't think it's off of root stock.
Oh, BTW - I think I may understand the point you were trying to make about birds. Likely they may have dropped a seed, right?
Definitely a cherry. I'm afraid we won't know what kind until you get flowers and fruit. Bird cherry is still a possibility. Birds fly miles so the seeds could come from miles away.
