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Lipa Kreepa
Antisocial People Person
Registered: 09/17/09
Posts: 5,880
Loc: Where ppl are herded and ...
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possible sassafras tree?
#11420210 - 11/09/09 04:33 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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heya people,
i spotted a tree that i think is a sassafras. i don't have a camera so i can't post flicks... bear with my descriptions please the leaves are smooth and mitten shaped. the top is a dark, hunter green (although it could just be dark becuase its growing in a shaded spot) and the underside is a shade lighter. it reminds me of the underside of a chacruna leaf. slightly fuzzy but not really... the coloring to this "almost fuzz" is a redish gold sortof. the edges of the leaves are smooth and almost have a lip to them that curls under. the tips are slightly pointed. the texture of the leaves is tough and rubbery. the leaves i gathered were young and although they seemed rich with oils they didn't smell like much of anything when crushed.
so far this sounds like a sassy, although its the flowers that are throwing me off... they're red. i'm in the south and have never seen a wild sass tree or any sassafras tree for that matter. this was definately planted and its on a neighbor's property. meaning that i can't dick with it too much, but let me try and describe the blooms....
they are blood red. they are clustered at the end of a short branch which erects from the tip of the young shoot ends (the tips of the branches). they are small in size and widespread throughout the whole tree.
are there any strains of sassafras that have red blooms? i've only come across info about the yellow-flowered strains. if this isn't a sassy, does it sound like anything else you know of? lastly, how easy does sassafras do with propagation like cuttings/clones? i'm out of most soil substates but i do have plain verm and plain plite. would u suggest a straight plite substrate or a mix with the verm for cuttings?? if a mix, what ratio?
thanks in advance
-------------------- LOVE LIFE AND LIVE IT HARD! 'Great Spirit, today, let me touch the Earth so the Earth can touch me.' "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -- Vonnegut A monkey w/out his jungle is just an inmate-- lipa
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nitelife
Ethno Man
Registered: 09/26/09
Posts: 383
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: Lipa Kreepa]
#11420245 - 11/09/09 04:39 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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Not sure about this species of tree, but if you are rooting it put it in a mix of 50/50 soil/perlite, an maybe throw in a little vermiculite. This will ensure a free draining mix to keep away rot and disease.
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Big L
In tall buildings
Registered: 02/11/09
Posts: 3,532
Loc: Luxury
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: Lipa Kreepa]
#11420250 - 11/09/09 04:39 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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Edited by Big L (11/09/09 04:44 PM)
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vadub
nuggets
Registered: 07/06/06
Posts: 568
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: Big L]
#11420484 - 11/09/09 05:18 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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Chew on the stem of a leaf, if it tastes awesome you got it!
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Big L
In tall buildings
Registered: 02/11/09
Posts: 3,532
Loc: Luxury
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: vadub]
#11420500 - 11/09/09 05:20 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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do they taste root beerish?
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BongIncarnate
Stranger in astrange land....
Registered: 08/10/04
Posts: 45
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: Big L]
#11420506 - 11/09/09 05:21 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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sassy trees reseed, so if you're slick you can uproot a sucker after the leaves fall, if they haven't, identify by leaf and tie a colored ribbon around the young trees. It's not like they are rare, on the contrary they are a weedy tree like a pawlonia or a liriodendron.
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lolbience
bridgesy eye eye eye
Registered: 06/20/09
Posts: 306
Last seen: 9 years, 8 months
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Re: possible sassafras tree? [Re: nitelife]
#11421252 - 11/09/09 07:05 PM (14 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
nitelife said: Not sure about this species of tree, but if you are rooting it put it in a mix of 50/50 soil/perlite, an maybe throw in a little vermiculite. This will ensure a free draining mix to keep away rot and disease.
seems counter productive suh.
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Horticulture
Mycocurious
Registered: 04/30/09
Posts: 1,102
Loc: Midwest
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
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Alright, this one is bothering me. Mainly because I'm a fan of Sassafras, have tons of them, and generally find them pretty interesting. To begin with, what your neighbor has is almost certainly not a Sassafras. For one thing, Sassafras isn't used a lot in landscaping because they're hard to transplant, and they tend to be short-lived scrubby trees that well... aren't used for landscaping. You got me curious so I looked in The Manual of Woody Landscape Plants 5th Ed. Dirr makes no mention of cultivars with red blooms, or really any cultivars of it at all. Which means they don't exist, or at least not for purchase.
So that leaves the question of what do you have? My best guess is a Magnolia of sorts. That fits your leaf descriptions except for the mitten shaped-bit (which is really what's throwing me off). No Magnolias that I know of are mitten shaped, but they're almost all Acuminate (coming to a point), thick, with lighter furry undersides. There are some Magnolias that bloom red, Magnolia x soulangeana comes to mind, as there are a number of red cultivars... though the blooms are not clustered on magnolias.
So... my questions to you would be... When you say mitten shaped, do you mean that it has multiple lobes (fingers) like the top leaves of Big L's picture? When you say clustered do you mean that there are multiple flowers per "short branch"? Does it flower throughout the year?
Real Sassafras will have an unmistakable scent when you break one of the young stems (which start green, then age to orangish-bronze as they become "woody"). Root-beerish, but better, imo. It tends to be a smaller tree, found in colonies in fields, or where forests have been cut recently (its one of the first species to grow back, but will die out once bigger species become established). The fall colour is tends to be yellow, but I've found one on my property with red fall colour, and you can bet that I'm going to be trying to prop the hell out of it next year.
-------------------- The Plant Mage Guild
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