I have a Viburnum dentatum that is three years old. It is growing beautifully. I know it takes a few years to bloom but I have always understood these bloom in spring. Yesterday I went outside and it had what appeared to be flower buds. Sort of white pinky colored. They look very differet than the leaves before they unfolded. Can these bloom in the fall?!?!
I have two pics.
Any help is appreciated.
Kwanjin
Pic 2. Sorry for the blur. Bad camera. The buds are on the tips of many of the branches.
I don't know what it is, but I don't think that's Viburnum dentatum. Maybe some other Viburnum?
I will get a better pic today.
Looks like Rhus aromatica (Fragant sumac) to me.
Definitely not sumac. Here are some better pics.
And another...
Viburnum trilobum
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/132925/
Yup. Looks like Rhus aromatica to me. I don't claim to know everything, especially in your warmer climate, but it cannot be a viburnum. Viburnums have an opposite leaf arrangement on the stem. That is, two leaves connect to the stem at the same level on the stem, but on opposite sides. Like this: http://amylyne.myweb.uga.edu/EEAG/leafarrangement.html
Your mystery shrub is clearly alternate, as each leaf is composed of three leaflets, and only one leaf connects with the stem at one place on the stem. Fragrant sumac doesn't look like most sumacs. See here:
http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/rhar4.htm
http://www.swsbm.com/Britton-Brown/Rhus_aromatica.gif
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/124107/
Okay, now I'm confused. This was sent to me from the Arbor Day Foundation as "Arrowood Viburnum". I have crushed the leaves and it has no fragrance. And it still would not bloom in September as this one appears to be doing.
So...? What the ?!%#@* do I have? LOL
I've seen other people post their Arbor Day foundation trees for ID, and I think in most cases they had at least one plant that wasn't on the list of things that they were supposed to get so I wouldn't be surprised at all if they sent you one that was labelled wrong.
Blooming in September could be caused by weird weather, or occasionally things will put out a few blooms at the wrong time of year for no obvious reason. So I wouldn't use the blooming in September part to rule anything in/out in terms of ID.
I've crushed the leaves, and can't smell anything but normal "green" on fragrant sumac too. But that may or may not mean anything because I have found that my nose is so radically different than most people's. My Carolina Alspice that every visitor says smells so good, smells like Elmer's glue to me. LOL
Even if the flower buds don't get to bloom this fall, how they are arranged can be a clue to the identity also. Arrowwood viburnum flower bunches are flat topped. Fragrant sumac's is more like a cone or narrowly pyramidal.
Okay. My other question should be for the Arbor Day people. How the **** did I get that when they don't even offer it? Guess I'll have to wait for the blooms. They are a bunch, not just a few. Almost every branch tip has some.
Could be they don't know what they have--maybe whoever they get the plants from told them it was the viburnum, so they told you that's what it was.
Could be as Ecrane says (seen lots of threads pointing out that Arbor Day don't know much about what they're doing!!), or it could be a bird-sown seed that happened to fall into their Viburnum seedbed.
Resin
I'm tending toward the thought that Arbor Day doesn't know what they're doing. I've seen too many problems with them. They just grow a stick and give it any old name. AND this is the only thing that lived that they sent me.
So...my next Q. Is the sumac okay to keep? I like how it looks. It's pretty.
