April 24: Box elder

I identified a new-to-me tree yesterday. I love that I've been observing trees in my area for at least 20 years, and I still come across ones that weren't common where I grew up, or I just never noticed enough to name before. This one is in the park, and I noticed it especially yesterday because it's got seeds now: pairs of wings like maple, but the leaves were un-mapley. They were compound, mostly in threes, kind of elongated with teeth and if I hadn't known they were definitely growing on a tree and not a vine, I would have thought it was poison ivy.

Well, it's a box elder, which actually is a kind of maple, Acer negundo. Box elder! It's a name I've heard my whole life and I'd never put a tree to it. I was sure when I found it in my field guide, but when I read, "They resemble leaves of Poison Ivy," that clinched it.



Hello, box elder! Of course now that I've put a name on it, I see it everywhere, and I realize I've been seeing it for years.