While Brad and I took a small jaunt around my area he saw this and said he was stumped. That piqued my curiosity. Don’t hear that often What say the crowd? Has short catkins on it if that helps. Dried now. Tried to get a decent pic of them but I’m short.
looking at his pics carefully it appears as though those catkins are stuck in the limbs. There were a lot of oaks around too.
I thought the catkins may have just been stuck there too. From what I could discern they’re not. Part of the tree. While I’m looking at the bottom of the leaves I didn’t get the impression of thick glossy leaves. Theyre thin and transparent. Maybe time of year? Young? I’ll have to wander over tomorrow / today and see if I can pull a branch down. Get a top pic and make 100% sure those catkins grew in place.
The black gum trees that I've seen in the wild have a very distinct branching structure. They come out from the trunk at almost perfectly perpendicular angles. The ones I saw last week still had small flowers on them too.
The pics i posted were from mid July last year. Maybe the leaves have to mature more? Variations among the species?
Ok, went back and tore a branch off. Tops of the leaves do have shine but nothing like a waxy holly bush or anything. Rather fragile. Oh yeah and the catkins were just draped over the branches, not part of the tree.
