#tree identification

Summer 2025 | Wild Juniper

To lift the spirit, here's a video I took today of one of my favorite trees. This one is on my parent's property. His low branches remind me of tusks.

so long story short I have some wood and not any certainty on what type of wood it is, even after spending about 4 hours teaming up with someone with a tree identification book, a PDF from a forestry commission, and like three websites

The closest ive figured is that it might be a species of elm? but im open to more input.

The characteristic that's not apparent from looking is that the wood is fairly easy to carve with a utility knife. I have some green soft maple, and it seemed to be about that easy to work with. Much easier to carve than both walnut and white oak.

It is NOT black cherry, there's an app that uses photos to try and identify the wood and it keeps saying black cherry, but it's wrong XD

-- often called "horsetails"

-- tracheophytes

-- only 25 living species

-- true land plants

-- vascular

-- true roots, stems, and leaves

-- small leaves

-- scale-like pattern on leaves

-- grow in tropical and temperate climates

-- use alteration of generations

-- cell walls in leaves and stems contain silica

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Box elder is a maple that doesn’t often get credit for being a maple. Moreso, it is a tree that is not thought highly of, and it may not even be welcome in certain discussions around maples. You could even say that box elder is a “rogue maple,” as Arthur Plotnick deems it in The Urban Tree Book. It should come as no surprise, but if people are going to talk about a plant this way, it’s only going…