Hobo Jungle

[MurphOnMillerAve]

My goodness, Doc Wayne, you certainly can extrapolate from incomplete data really well!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I found the correct leaf pattern and round purple berries on a beauty berry bush, but we are looking for a tree, darker berries and less venation on the leaf.

Are we sure it's a tree? Just recently, I saw a lilac "bush"/shrub that had grown so tall and buxom that I wondered if I were seeing a lilac tree (but have no idea if they exist.) Could the plant have been pruned, on purpose and by happenstance (weather, etc.) over the years to the condition wherein it appears to be a tree, struggling in competition for sunlight (thus the determined vertcial growth,) but is actually a tall and lanky bush?
Murph

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I found the correct leaf pattern and round purple berries on a beauty berry bush, but we are looking for a tree, darker berries and less venation on the leaf.

Are we sure it's a tree? Just recently, I saw a lilac "bush"/shrub that had grown so tall and buxom that I wondered if I were seeing a lilac tree (but have no idea if they exist.) Could the plant have been pruned, on purpose and by happenstance (weather, etc.) over the years to the condition wherein it appears to be a tree, struggling in competition for sunlight (thus the determined vertcial growth,) but is actually a tall and lanky bush?
Murph

That was also another factor that suggested elderberry to me and many are as you describe. However, it was just a passing thought from me....

[webenda]

Right on Murph, many bushes/shrubs can be pruned to be trees. Here in Tucson the gardeners have produced 18 foot tall oleander trees. Sometimes nature determins whether a plant will grow as a bush or tree. There is a native tree in Tucson (Olneya tesota) that grows as a bush if it does not get enough water. I find it funny that even plant experts confess that their definitions of "trees" and "shrubs" admit of exceptions.

I had fun once trying to turn a Desert broom (Baccharis sarothroides) into a tree. It is an invasive weed growing three to four feet in height. As a tree (forced by cutting off all but one branch) it managed to reach nine feet before the trunk split right down the middle. Unlike oleander, desert broom will not grow as a tree.

I did find a few bushes that resemble Tramp's leaves and have dark berries, but had to reject them as their maximum heights were two to three feet.


Rufus,

I'll edit my response to Elderberry.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rufus,

I'll edit my response to Elderberry.

Well, if you must, but I'm probably out on a limb on elderberry,

As I stated, just a passing thought....

I cut down a tree Fri at my place in PA ~18" at the base. I have no idea what it was other than it was a lot harder wood that I expected given every indication about it. And, thanks to my grandfather, I generally know most of the kinds of trees that I have on my land. Maybe when I cut it up and split it I'll get a better idea about what it was....

BTW, the woodpecker and I apparently have achieved a truce status - he hated that 1 window and I boarded it up, and I've had zero damage inflicted now for about a month. The specificity of his dislike for that one window and not the ones adjacent to it still impresses me.

[Mitch]

Wayne, about every five to seven years it's covered in round black berries.

Mulberry trees can get pretty big. My dad had one right beside the garage and it literally littered the ground with berries. The berries are black, get pretty big, but they aren't round. They're elongated like a blackberry, and very sweet. Mom would make pints of mulberry jelly. But the birds would eat them and then make messes over everything nearby, not to mention all the smashed berries on the road beside the garage. Eventually, the old man had us whack it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.... and it literally littered the ground with berries.

Mulberry trees are a total mess.....

[webenda]

The mulberry leaflet pattern rules it out for Tramp's tree. Mulberry is consistant with having leaflets arranged in an alternate pattern and not a pinnate pattern.

Alternate-Odd-Even.jpg (19.99 KiB) Viewed 1577 times

Interestingly, mulberry is one of those trees with different shaped leaves on the same tree.

White Mulberry.jpg (14.26 KiB) Viewed 1579 times

[Tramp]

The berries aren't in obvious clusters, more spread out all over the branches, small, hard, and very black. It has to be something, doesn't it? The branches are also kind of spiky and rather tough. Bugs never eat the tree, while almost touching it is a highbush cranberry, which gets eaten alive every year. I spend hours removing bug nests and squishing the caterpillars.


Daisy just figured out what it is! Shall I tell, or do hobos want to keep trying. Hint: not a native tree.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.... not a native tree.

Had my suspicions that it might not be - one of them illegal aliens!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

OK, one try: Locust Tree (Robinia genus: deciduous trees & shrubs [!] ) Eh?
Murph

[Rufus T. Firefly]

OK, one try: Locust Tree (Robinia genus: deciduous trees & shrubs [!] ) Eh?
Murph

Don't think so - I've cut down enough black locust and honey locust trees for firewood - and the new growth on these tends to have some nasty thorns.... White flowers and usually green seed pods. Nature's equivalent of pressure treated wood and good straight sections are in demand by the Amish round my place.

[webenda]

There is a thornless honey locust. Locust trees have smaller leaflets and more per leaf than Tramp's tree. What did Daisy find?

[v8vega]

In August 2005 the median price of a average one family home in the San Fernando Valley reached $600,000. In 1997 it was $155,000. From July to August (one month) 2005 it rose by $100,000. By 2009 prices are down to $330,000.
I read the above in Wikipedia, I am pretty sure the median price went below $330,000, only now do I read in the newspapers regularly that prices only now are going up at a normal rate, not crazy like in 2005. You could and people did buy a house and sit on it a few months and make a bunch of money even after all the taxes and realtor costs. Of coarse at the end a lot of people lost their shirt.
For a long time when I walk around my neighborhood there was a foreclosed on vacant house every two blocks.
Also in Wikipedia Sylmar where I live has 70% owner occupied houses. Its also 70% Mexican. And Sylmar has some of the lowest density in the Los Angeles area because its in the far corner of the valley and not very many apartments.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

There is a thornless honey locust.
Locust trees have smaller leaflets and more per leaf than Tramp's tree.

Not surprising, but it still looks a lot like the ones I'm familiar with...

What did Daisy find?

Indeed! I'm growing more curious.