Red Maple/Acer rubrum
Black Tupelo; blackgum
Nyssa sylvatica Marsh.
Bark black, marked with furrows and cross-cracks that divide the ridges into squarish plates. Branches slender, spreading to horizontal, often drooping in open-grown specimens. Twigs 2 to 3 mm in diameter, gray to reddish. Buds obtuse, of overlapping yellow-brown scales, terminal buds 6 mm long. Leaves alternate, early deciduous, simple; marked with irregular black spots and purple coloration from midsummer on; elliptic to broadly oval to obovate, 5 to 15 cm long, 3 to 8 cm wide; apex acute to broadly rounded, margin entire, base wedge-shaped. Flowers unisexual, less than 4 mm in diameter, appearing in April before leaf expansion. Fruit a black drupe 8 to 10 mm long, 1 to 3 on pedicels 3 to 5 cm long, stone faintly ribbed.
Black Tupelo; blackgum/Nyssa sylvatica
White Ash
Fraxinus americana L.
Bark gray to brownish, divided into narrow, deep furrows and ridges of equal width. Branches stout, wide-spreading. Twigs 3 to 6 mm in diameter. Buds (terminal) broadly ovoid consisting of 4 appressed scales, dark brown to black; lateral buds spherical, tightly appressed to a crescent-shaped leaf scar. Leaves opposite, deciduous, odd-pinnately compound; 20 to 30 cm long, white below when fresh; leaflets 7 to 9, petiolulate, oval to ovate, 5 to 15 cm long, 3 to 5 cm wide, apex acuminate, margin essentially entire, base broadly rounded, pinnate veins conspicuous on underside. Flowers unisexual (plants dioecious); pistillate inconspicuous about 1 mm in diameter, arranged in dense paniculate clusters; staminate conspicuous in mass. Fruit a samara, 25 to 60 mm long, wing terminal on the thickened seed.