Maple Tree ID

The leaves on this maple aren't typical around here; they are so oblong. What did I find here in this park?

Manitoba Maple Acer negundo.

Resin

That's a new one for me. It has compound leaves, which is pretty unique for a maple, right?

We could get all preachy about how unique is singular - not pretty, or most, or really...but we'd expect that from a teacher.

Acer negundo is a native Maple with compound foliage, but there are quite a few more that have Asian origins - including such handsome plants as Acer griseum, Acer maximowiczianum, and Acer triflorum which are a group affectionately known as the trifoliate maples.

Acer negundo has its claim to fame as being the woody plant which as a seedling is most mistakenly thought to be Poison Ivy. Why would one think that...

Though Manitoba Maple is unique among maples in being the only one ever to have pinnate leaves with five leaflets per leaf; the others V V mentions all have three leaflets, or if five, arranged palmately.

Resin

Don't assume much about my teaching ability. I teach kids to bubble in tests these days - that's pretty much it...

Just read about this tree and the article called it a "trash tree". Ugly samaras, nasty insects, weak wood, short life span.... I do like the catchy alliterative name though: Manitoba Maple. Much better than Box-Elder.

Articles such as you allude to ought to be called out for the charlatans they are.

I may be convinced to agree that Manitoba Maple will seldom suit as a primary landscape specimen, though I've witnessed many a fine old tree in the eastern US. Pseudo may be persuaded to resuscitate an ancient image of an ancient tree he once came across - in a cemetery, I recall.

Acer negundo has its home. It is a pioneer species, and is best in its normal setting in riparian zones of creeks, streams, rivers, and other bodies of water. Heavy seed set and easy germination is its stock in trade, making its specialty stabilization of those soils that are otherwise easily eroded by moving water.

Being an attractor of insects means that it becomes a buffet table for those things that eat those bugs - usually the native bird population. Branches occasionally breaking off leave snags, which in turn offer voids for nesting birds and dead wood for woodpeckers to investigate for decompositional insect larvae. I suppose all that is bad, and nobody would want any of THEM around.

A place for everything, and everything in its place...

Those are some pretty convincing arguments, VV.

there are no bad trees, just bad people planting them in the wrong place...

Ask and ye shall receive. :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/maackia/Woody%20Stuff/Deciduous%20Trees/HPIM7883.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/maackia/Woody%20Stuff/Deciduous%20Trees/HPIM7878.jpg

You da man.