Help with Tree ID Please

Leave are not thin enough and no walnuts its a very big bumper crop for walnuts this year, mine are dropping hard already from the nuts! (Fall is going to suck nuts)

I'm zone 6A in MA, think that rules out persimmon...

Holy cow! Looked up pignut hickory (had never heard of it).

I have seen these in my yard (not really near this tree, but never knew what they were and I suppose squirrels would spread around?):
http://www.redbubble.com/people/rdshaw/art/792584-pignut-hickory

Not sure that my pith is correct, though. Or the shape of the leaves...

Never thought this tree would be this hard!

persimmon drops heavy furit in the fall about the size of a small cherry every where normally red wen it falls and turns orange and tats when people grap it for pies!

I agree. Leaflets are not thin enough and leaves don't have the overall look of black walnut. I like the butternut (white walnut) conclusion FTW!

PeteD, here's a reference stating that butternut also has chambered pith:
http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=31

I'm wondering that myself. I appears that they don't. I don't recall ever seeing them on our ash trees growing up. My coworker said he's never seen catkins on ash trees before. I searched the web for referrences to catkins and ash and the only referrence I found was that Mountain Ash has catkins but mountain ash really isn't an ash anyways, it's in the rose family. So then I searched for lists of trees that do have catkins and the one I posted above was the most complete that I found. And going through US forest service identification pages ash is not under trees with catkins.

I'm stumped now...

Found a (single) fruit!

See pics below, also larger branch from few weeks ago re-sawn this AM. Don't think leaves look like hickory - all the same size on this tree.

Is butternut only remaining possibility?







Thanks for all of the help everyone!

Pete

Nope. Pignut usually has only 5 leaflets. Here's a recent thread about a Pignut at my BIL's, with pics of leaf and nut:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/75666/

Fruit doesn't look quite like a pecan/hickory nut but it could be.

I'm going to wait for the guys that are more familiar with the other species in that family (butternut etc) to chime in.

Agree, found small hickory in the woods, totally different look to leaflets and seeing in person makes all of the difference. Somebody has a pignut around me though, because I have seen those carcasses.

Forget persimmon. its leaves are simple, not compound.
Pignut never has more than seven leaflets per leaf.
Pecan does not have chambered pith.
Black walnut seldom has a terminal leaflet, unlike the tree in these pictures, and its pith is pale, not dark.
That leaves (Ta-da!) butternut, Juglans cinerea.
It's an attractive tree, but not much good for firewood.

The assertion that "the fruit is a pod" was a red herring.

One thing thats a pretty good size Nut for this time of year....Rules out Hickory imo and Black Walnut will be in clusters and enough on the ground every year to make you fall wading through them.

Thanks. I do beg to differ on my characterization of "the fruit is a pod" as a red herring. I like to call that a brain fart (I actually have another term that certainly violates forum rules so I won't use that). I probably mistook catkins for pods in previous years before I knew what a catkin was. As you can see, this tree has never produced many nuts. Can only find one right now.

The diameter at the base of this tree is about 12 inches. I may try to do some resawing of the wood on a bandsaw for some turning/small woodwork projects.

Actually, could be Japanese Walnut, too (or a hybrid), since butternuts have a canker problem:
http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/88157/

Massachusetts' woods are not old growth by any stretch....and I have some spaced out old apple trees in my woods too (and rock walls). Someone may have planted this thing...

Ever-thing to me says Butternut. Canker would be more prone to an older tree.

Pignut is known by other names as well, including smooth bark hickory. We have them. My grandmother lived in Woburn, MA and we would collect bags of the nuts and crack/eat them when I was a kid.

Yeah that! ^

I'm not saying you aren't right about butternut because I think it's a likely culprit, but IIRC, my pecan trees do have a chambered pith on the smaller twigs. I'll look when I get home.

From Vanderbilt U. website:

Black walnut leaves are one of the largest singly pinnate (leaflets arranged along a single central rachis) leaves in this area. Trees with similar leaves are tree of heaven and pecan. Later on this tour you will have an opportunity to compare another walnut tree with a tree of heaven nearby. The leaflets of tree of heaven have a distinctive gland in a notch at the base of each leaflet. Walnut leaflets do not have this gland. Walnut twigs also have unusual chambered pith (please do not cut branches or twigs from trees on the Vanderbilt campus) and tree of heaven twigs do not. This large walnut tree shows the distinctive furrowed bark of walnut, which is quite different from the smoother bark of tree of heaven. Pecan trees are not common in the wild in this area so they aren't likely to be confused with walnut there. Pecan bark is also not deeply furrowed and its twigs do not have chambered pith.

I could cite other authorities.

Figured I would post the cross section in case anyone is interested...



Edit: I should add that I found more single nuts when I cut it down. They were more round than oblong.

If that most recent picture is from the tree in question, it sure looks like a Black Walnut. Black Walnut should have alternate leaves. This means the leaves, each comprised of a stem and a whole bunch of leaflets, should be in an alternate arrangement. The alternate arrangement is most evident away from the tips of the twigs. Ner the tips of the twigs leaves emerge so close together it can be hard to tell if they are opposite or alternate.

So, dark heartwood, hollow pith in stems, roundish nuts, leaves with 12 to 16 r more leaflets - it all points to black Walnut.

I like your observations, but I still have two stumbling blocks for it's being black walnut. The leaflets look wider than that found on a typical black walnut and terminal leaflets are present more than any black walnut tree I've seen. Also, the fruit looks elongated, yet the fruit on my black walnut trees right now looks very round--like golf balls.

Can you post pic's of the nuts? I just never see walunt with sapwood over an inch or two, but maybe thats why people like mine. idk

Butternut. Nuts are oval or egg shaped,with deeper grooved shells than Black Walnuts.

Love the mortise and tenon work!