Florida tree ID

[edric]

A few feet from my property, in the partially cleared lot, is a native tree that I've been taking care of for a few years, the neighbor is trim and cut happy. and it got wacked off a couple of inches above ground when it was young, but when he saw that it was a tree and not a bush, he decided to let it grow, hence the way the trunk looks, I just know Eric knows what it is, anyone know ? Thanks in advance, Ed

[BigBpalms]

Cinnamomum camphora - Great hurricane resistance shown after Charlie - also a great shade tree and a good climber for the kids - only drawback is the nasty berries

[edric]

Cinnamomum camphora - Great hurricane resistance shown after Charlie - also a great shade tree and a good climber for the kids - only drawback is the nasty berries

Thanks Brian, it's just far enough away where the berries will fall in the weeds,(if there really were any), Ed

[edric]

I went out and checked but it doesn't have any smell to the leaves like my Camphor tree, and the Camphor tree has little thorns on it, not too sharp, and it also has these bumps on the trunk, the smell of the crushed leaves is unmistakable, where as the tree in question has no smell at all, here are some photos of the Camphor tree I just took, thanks everyone, Ed

[Eric in Orlando]

That first is a camphor. It is a good and bad tree;

THE GOOD

fast growing

very wind resistant

cold hardy

drought tolerant

evergreen

THE BAD

greedy roots

gets very large

lots of berries= lots of fast growing seedlings

camphors are allopathic, kore so as they get older and it can be difficult to grow other plants under them.

If you keep it I would train it to one stem and remove the others

[Eric in Orlando]

the 2nd tree is Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, Hercules-Club Tree. It is native and a citrus relative. It is a larval food source for the Giant Swallowtail butterfly.

[edric]

the 2nd tree is Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, Hercules-Club Tree. It is native and a citrus relative. It is a larval food source for the Giant Swallowtail butterfly.

Wow! Thanks Eric, I really wanted to know what the second one was, but just always figured it was a camphor because when you crush the leaves they smell just like camphor oil that come in a bottle, why does the first tree in the thread have no smell to the crushed leaves? And why does the Hercules-club tree have such a heavy Camphor smell, and I was wondering what all those hundreds of tiny caterpillars were that devoir every leaf on the tree, every year, now I see, thanks for the info. guys, Ed

[Dave-Vero]

A spelling correction for Eric: "allelopathic." A plant sheds chemicals from its dead leaves or has them ooze from the roots, killing or inhibiting the growth of other plants. An impressive early study was of the effects of eucalyptuses in California on anything growing under them. A Florida scrub plant "Florida rosemary" (Ceratiola ericoides) maintains bare sandy swathes around itself.

The hercules club in my back yard grew fast but it's sort of ugly--good thing it doesn't call attention to itself because of all the palms and laurel oaks around it.