Tree ID help please

[jeffreythree]

I am having a hard time figuring out what this tree is.  It does not help that the closest branch is 50' up.  I think it is western soapberry judging by the leaves on the ground around it, but the bark does not look like any other photo I can find.  I have not found any of the fruit or seeds on the ground either to help identify it.  The fruit/seeds have been a dark color since November when I noticed these trees.  No pic of the leaves I found at the base.  They were ~3" longx~1.5" wide, slick on top, greyer and slightly fuzzy on bottom.  The other tree I thought of is chinaberry(melia azedarach) but all of the ones around me have bright yellow fruit.  The tree in the pic is ~28" dbh and ~60' tall.  Adds to my collection of 7 almost state or national champs.

Bark:



Limbs with fruit/seeds

[Dodgy Loner]

Looks like a green ash, unless y'all have some strange species of ash out there in Texas that I'm not familiar with.  Definitely an ash though.  You can see the coarse, oppositely branched stems quite clearly in the second picture, and the bark is textbook.

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like ash to me as well. Those black things hanging on the branches are the old male pollen flowers. On Black ash they are a purple color when they emerge. I don't usually see the flowers stay so long on the white/green ashes. Black ash will retain them all winter long. However, downy leaflets on the underside tells me green ash. Black has tufts of hairs at the base of the petiolules (leaflet stems) where they attach to the main leaf petiole (main leaf axis). They are compound like walnut leaves, but fall away from the main leaf axis in the fall. Turn yellow-brown in fall.

[jeffreythree]

Well, that explains why nothing has eaten the 'berries', they aren't berries .  Well, nowhere near a champ on this one, but adds a species I did not know I had.  I am new to this identifying standing trees thing.

[WDH]

Yep, classic ash bark.  That tree is a male.  Ash has male and female trees.  You have a boy .

[LeeB]

Does that mean we all gonna get a cigar? I like a good cigar.

[SwampDonkey]

Never knew they were dioecious, had to look it up. But explains why I never see male pollen on white ash with seed. But black ash aren't, they can have both flowers on one tree, can be dioecious and can also have perfect flowers. My yard black ash have both male and female on one tree.  I picked seed last fall off that tree with pictured male flowers.

[WDH]

Does that mean we all gonna get a cigar? I like a good cigar.

Lee,

I think that would be appropriate .

[Ron Scott]

Yes, to green ash.