A Flowering Plant That You Can ID...Solved!!.....Maple-Leaf Viburnum

[WDH]

 
 

What is this plant?

[Dave Shepard]

I know those leaves! I just can't remeber what they are! I should be better at this game than I am. How about a Cornus? Maybe Florida? Probably way off. It's probably a picture of a chicken for all the luck I have been having lately.


Dave

[WDH]

Dave, you got it right!  It is not a chicken .  It is also not a cornus .

[Tom]

I don't know which leaves go witht the flowers.  Could be hog plum.

[tcsmpsi]

The leaves for that little bugger are the ones that, when one walks around it, seem as though they will stick you, but are actually much softer than they appear.

An initial whiff of the flowers blooming seem, at first, to be rather adversely pungent, amost to the point of 'stink'.   A more in depth olfactory experience, however, is quite pleasant.  Almost intoxicating.

That's what it is.         A 'swamp' creature. 

[Tom]

not prunus, could be a mint


.....I don't know.

[Dan_Shade]

mountain laurel

[Dodgy Loner]

I'm pretty sure its initials are V.d., but don't worry, it's not contagious 

[Dave Shepard]

Aha! Thanks DL, it must be a Viburnum of some sort. Are we playing with books or without?
We are talking about the leaf in the upper left in the second picture, right?

Dave

[Tom]

That would be cool!  If it's a Viburnum it culls it down to 1:15,000,000

[Dodgy Loner]

All the leaves I see belong to the same plant, although some are more 'typical' than others.

[Tom]

I initially misread some because I was seeing partial leaves mixed in and figured it was a trick.

[WDH]

Here is another pic.

 

Look at the leaves in the background on the left side of the photo.  They are more "text-book" typical.  As you can see, it has an opposite leaf arrangement.

[Dodgy Loner]

We've got'em planted in the courtyard at Warnell.  Is that one planted, or did you find it growing wild?

[WDH]

DL,

Found it in the wilds of East Texas. 

OK, y'all, Dodgy Loner is hanging back on this one (what you would call a gracious Dendro fanatic), so somebody drive the nail home on this one .

[Dodgy Loner]

*chirp chirp, chirp chirp*...Anyone?  Surely someone has a plant ID book that covers viburnums in the southeast.

[Dave Shepard]

Well, if we are going to use books, then I say it's a viburnaum dentatum, arrowwood viburnum.


Dave

[Dodgy Loner]

There was a farmer had a dog...

Next time, you can just pretend that you knew it all along.  Books?  What books?

[bitternut]

Heck, thats an easy one. Its Highbush Cranberry. I just got done trimming the grass around one in my yard about 5 minutes ago. Mine still has the berries on it from last year along with this years new blossoms. There are a couple of Catbirds that have been gorging themselves on them the last couple of weeks. Never knew Catbirds to eat berries but I watch them in there all the time lately eating them. I think there are enough to last them the rest of the summer.

[SwampDonkey]

Viburnum trilobum is our highbush cranberry in the Maritimes. There isn't a line fence or abandoned field that hasn't got a clump of Viburnum trilobum in these parts. We also have V. edule here in the Maritimes, but it's called squashberry and grows on wet poor ground.

The flowers and leaves are different in our species, V. trilobum , and they grow up to 15 feet tall. I cut a lot out of the back yard a few years ago that were 3 inches at the stump. Talk about ruffed grouse attractant. They will come across a 100 acre open field for those berries. They have cranberry honing radar.  I have a small one on the front lawn, just starting to flower now. Yup, I've seen a grouse on occasion honing in on my bush. The flowers on our variety V. trilobum have a lot of sterile ones along the perimeter of the cluster and the arrangement reminds you of 'Queen Anne's Lace'. The EurAsian variety Viburnum opulus var. americanum or  also known as Viburnum opulus subsp. americanum is said to be potentially poisonous when green, and for some reason is the only one listed in Peterson's Guide to Medicinal Plants. Shame. They are not actually cranberries, but they taste the same. Cranberries are Vaccinium sp., just as blue berries. Alaskan blue berries in fact taste like cranberries. I've seen them canned in the west. Huckleberries also fall in the same family as blueberries, and they taste similar to cranberries.

[WDH]

Some of the leaves on this plant are distinctly 3 lobed.  Look at the last pic in the background on the top left quadrant of the pic.  See the distinct 3-lobed leaves?  I think that it might be maple-leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium).  It is definitely either maple-leaf or arrowwood viburnum.  Sometimes maple-leaf viburnum will have unlobed leaves.  How about arrowwood viburnum.  Does it sometimes have 3-lobed leaves?

[Dodgy Loner]

Are you sure the one in the background with the 3-lobed leaves isn't a different plant?   I've seen maple-leaf viburnums that had a few unlobed leaves, but the leaves still had acuminate tips.  The close-up leaves lack acuminate tips.  I've also never seen an arrowwood viburnum with 3 lobes, but I suppose it could happen.  Looks like this mystery ain't solved yet.

[WDH]

It is possible that an arrowwood viburnum and a maple-leaf viburnum were growing side by side.  But, if so, I did not notice it.  I took the pic thinking it was a maple-leaf viburnum, but there were some unlobed leaves on this year's flush of new growth.  There were definitely some 3-lobed leaves on the plant attached to the flowers in the photo.  That leans me to Viburnum acerifolium.  Maple-leaf viburnum is supposed to be the only one with 3-lobed leaves.  According to the Manual of The Vascular Flora of the Carolinas, "leaves 3-lobed, rarely unlobed".

After the response to this post, I was scratching my head wondering if I had inadvertantly photographed an arrowwood viburnum while thinking that it was a maple-leaf viburnum.

This particular plant is just trying to play games with us  ;D.  There are always supposed to do just what the book say, right     

Maybe this is a newly unrecognized hybrid

[Dave Shepard]

That wasn't me, I wouldn't cheat by looking in a book. I did catch the culprit in the act though:
 



Dave

[WDH]

Well now we know that you have a tutor, Dave .

[Dave Shepard]

Who? Michal A Dirr? Becuase The Minicatt isn't much help!


Dave

[Dodgy Loner]

I took the pic thinking it was a maple-leaf viburnum, but there were some unlobed leaves on this year's flush of new growth.  There were definitely some 3-lobed leaves on the plant attached to the flowers in the photo.

So there were 3-lobed leaves on the plant, but you only showed us pics of the unlobed leaves?   That's almost as sneaky as showing only the terminal leaflet of a hickory leaf! 

You're probably right, though...just an atypical Viburnum acerifolium!

[WDH]

In my defense, it was the inflourescense that I was trying to show .  I was planning to show the pic with the 3-lobed leaves in the background as the next clue.  The unlobed leaves did not bother me at the time because I didn't know any better.  Know I know that they confuse the situation.  The good thing is that I learned something new .

[tcsmpsi]

Taking into consideration where you were at, WDH, it might help to recognize that snakes, plants...and humans, take on genetic foundations which the books haven't caught up to.   

Certain liberties have tendency to be taken full advantage of.

[WDH]

You said it Tcsmpsi, I didn't (although I would have if I had thought of it first ).

[Dodgy Loner]

On a related note, I found some chalk maples this weekend that disagreed with the convergent tip theory that I've been peddling to my students for the last three years .  The majority of the leaves on the plants looked like they should, but there were a few dissenters in the group to keep me on my toes.

[WDH]

One again proves the theory that, most of the time, there is no one sure-fire magic characteristic that is alway 100% certain in ID'ing a plant.  It is better to look at several characteristics and surround the plant than to bore in on only one thing  .

[SwampDonkey]

If you want to test your patience on leaf shape, explain to your students the general shape of rattlesnake root Prenanthes spp.  That must have one of the most variable shaped leaf a plant can come up with. 

But, generally it's sagitate.  Sometimes lobed (2-6), sometimes not. Sometimes coursely serrate, sometimes not. I find them mostly in alder thickets in organic soil.

[Dodgy Loner]

One again proves the theory that, most of the time, there is no one sure-fire magic characteristic that is alway 100% certain in ID'ing a plant.  It is better to look at several characteristics and surround the plant than to bore in on only one thing  .

Well said.  That's the most important message that I've been trying to get across for the last 3 years.