Plant identification?

[wafflechicken]

Sorry if this isn't the right spot... I have a couple of plants, well really more bushes/trees that I'd love to identify but I'm a bit unsure of my skills. Please pardon the black spots, these are stuff I found walking the property not something I'm tending (though I'd like to know if I should be!)

I think (but not sure) that these are elderberries. Yes?




And this I have absolutely no idea.




thanks for any thoughts or ideas!

 

[tls_ranch]

Sorry if this isn't the right spot... I have a couple of plants, well really more bushes/trees that I'd love to identify but I'm a bit unsure of my skills. Please pardon the black spots, these are stuff I found walking the property not something I'm tending (though I'd like to know if I should be!) I think (but not sure) that these are elderberries. Yes? And this I have absolutely no idea. thanks for any thoughts or ideas!

The bottom plant is a dogwood. Trisha

 

[wafflechicken]

Ah thanks - it's gorgeous but apparently, sadly, not edible. Still, a nice one to have in the yard!

 

[MackChick]

Bottom one is definitely dogwood- can you post a pic of the whole tree/bush from your first plant and a close up of the leaf & flower?

 

[Luckyduck2]

The top two I think are also some other type of dogwood. I could tell you that the top one is not elderberry. I could send you a picture, but for some reason my computer keeps crashing when try to post a picture.

 

[erinszoo]

The two top ones are elderberry. But those are pretty small flower heads. They should smell sweet and strong.

 

[wafflechicken]

Oh cool! I'll try to take a picture of the larger plant (though it's mixed in with the thousand other plants that form the ever-encroaching barrier to the wilderness beyond my yard).

Thanks to everyone!

 

[MackChick]

It could also be bitter cherry- does it look like its forming fruit where the flowers were?

 

[wafflechicken]

Yes, it's totally forming fruit where the flowers were. From what I remember from last year it's blue-black fruit slightly larger than BBs.

I remember as a kid eating elderberries by the handful but now talking to my mother one of us has memory problems. Either I never told her I ate some (at 7-9 years old - dubious) fruits several years in a row or she doesn't remember me telling her and eating them. I'm 40, she's 70 honestly our memories are BOTH suspect.

Anyway I've managed to get some pics of the fruit from the flower clusters and the larger plant (though, like I said, it kind of gets lost in the rest of the vegetation around the perimeter)

In the pics the fruits look huge but they're like... twice the size of a BB? Small, wild blueberry? About that. I have a bunch of these around the perimeter and the berries, though small, look like the awesome things I ate 20 years ago. I would love to make jam out of them... unless it's going to kill me...

Thanks again!

the bushes/trees/something are about 5-8 feet tall:



This is what the fruits look like after the flowers have passed:






And this is what the "trunk" or "branches" look like:




Oh and hey, while I have you all... while I was taking these pics I saw a "blossom" I put that in quotes because when I touched it it was woody. Like someone curled some plywood shavings into a flower shape and dyed it. I really only care about the above and if I can make jam from it but this thing I found really confusing. A blossom of wood?

 

[MackChick]

That looks like a wild cherry to me- check out your local prunus species. Definitely edible and would be good in a jam. Post pictures when the fruits start turning colour The "wood blossom" is likely larvae/cocoon/gall-form of a bug who laid its babies there so when they emerge they can feed off the willow.