I thought I figured this tree out some years back, my CRS is kicking in. This is a fairly large one that is near a red oak I'm planning on cutting tomorrow if the wind doesn't pick up again. Non-compound, alternate leaves with a an occasional tooth on the leaf
I'm curious what that is. I have some bark similar to that in my mystery stack but it's not quite as thick looking.
No blue berries. I had a black gum in the front yard that I cut a couple years ago - can't kill the thing and the leaves are smooth, these have an occasional tooth. There are a bunch of these on my property bordering the National forest - none have berries The bark is a dead ringer for black gum though
no fruit, I have persimmon 2-3"s bearing fruit every year in much higher drier areas. Dogwoods are covered with red berries right now (and this would be a huge dogwood) You might be onto something with the sourwood
The thick bark and leaf shape make me think some type of willow. Closest match to the bark and leaf shape in my book is Peachleaf Willow. But my book doesn't include many southern varieties.
http://www.forestry.alabama.gov/PDFs/100/Sourwood.pdf bark of the mature sourwood resembles that of blackgum. I've seen some of them flower - probably similar to the link(again CRS kicking in) and we're 3-4months removed from the flowering
I'll cut one of them - been thinking about it for a while anyways. If it splits like gum I have blackgum that I can't identify. The sourwood has a rating of "dense/hard" from the PDF publications 19mmBTU from the sweeps chart
I say Black Gum. A lot of the Black Gum around here don't get lots of berries, at least not a lot that last long enough to fall on the ground, so lack of berries shouldn't be a clue on way or the other.
I'm voting for sourwood, black gum leaves usually have a large frontal lobe, they start narrow at the stem and get larger towards the tip. I've never seen sourwood but looking at the pics online yours looks like a dead ringer for it.
