A couple trees to ID

[Dodgy Loner]

Cope, just take a close-up picture of the twig where a leaf connects to it.  We will be able to tell whether or not the stipular scar is there without any problems.

[WDH]

Yes, stipules are associated with the leaf petiole (the little stem that connects the leaf to the twig).  Of course that was where the bud was that made the leaf in the first place .

[Cope]

I finally got time to take a few more pics of Tree 2.  Hopefully they show what is needed.  By the way, thanks to all for the help so far:

 



 



 



 



Here are a couple shots of my flowering dogwood for comparison purposes to the one I posted before:

 



 



Here is one looking at the base of that tree.  It looks in bad shape to me (a little darker than usual because it just quit raining.)  Does it look like its going to survive on its own, or should I try to do something to help it out?

 

[SwampDonkey]

I called the original dogwood an alternate leaf because the crowns have a tiered appearance to them and leaf veins follow the edges to the tip with crowding of leaves giving ab opposite or whorled look on twig tips and it hybridizes with red-osier. Fruit is almost black with red stems. In New Brunswick we don't have flowering dogwoods; just alternate-leaf, roundleaf, and red-osier.

[WDH]

The stipular scars are hard to see because of the very slow growth.  Even so, I still think that it is cucumber tree.  Those leaf scars are not black gumish.

[LeeB]

Is a cucumber tree in the same family as magnolia? Kinda looks like it to me.

I'll try again. inquiring mind want to know.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, LeeB they are. Thought someone answered ya, but browsing back through the thread I see ya got missed.

[LeeB]

Thank you. Just trying to continue my eddakation. The picture looked like a Magnolia to me, das why I axed.

[WDH]

Some people call it cucumber magnolia.  It has a nice showy flower.

[Cope]

So, after I posted the additional pics, is it fair to say that the consensus is that tree #2 is a cucumber tree?

[Dodgy Loner]

It's a blackgum.

Your close-ups of the twig have two characteristics that identify it as a blackgum, rather than a cucumbertree.  First, the twig is what is known as a "short shoot", meaning that the leaves are clustered very tightly together, and the stem is elongating very slowly.  Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to distinguish whether or not any stipular scars are encircling the twig, since the leaf scars are packed so tightly together.   However, short shoots are very common on blackgum.  I don't believe they normally occur on magnolias (if they do, it's not very common).  Second, cucumber tree has a very long, narrow, U-shaped leaf scar, much unlike the broad diamond-shaped and half-moon leaf scars on your twigs.  Finally, the undersides of the leaves lack the glaucous coating that one would expect on cucumbertree, but not on blackgum.

I also still believe that the dogwood is a flowering dogwood.  It's definitely not an alternate-leaf dogwood, as evidenced by the opposite leaf arrangement in the second-to-last photo.