Is this Hackberry?

dewingrm

dewingrm

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Oct 23, 2001
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I have a few of these in my backyard. I think it's Hackberry but I'm just not sure. The berries are the correct size and hang from one stem. The leaves and bark also appear to be correct. The only reason that I doubt that it's Hackberry is that the berries are juicy. From what I've read Hackberry berries usually do not have a lot of juice.

Any help with identification would be great.


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Hackberries do get ripe, about this time if year. Its when they taste best to.

I can't tell from the photo, but is 90% of the berry seed inside? As most of a hackberry is. Just a thin skin and a little pulp inside, then about the size of one of thos 6mm plastic airsoft bb's for a seed.
 
The berry is about the size of a pea. The seed is pretty large. You can see the seed in a last picture where I squashed it. The juice tastes sweet with a bitter aftertaste.
 
I'm not sure what you have there is hackberry. Do you have a picture of the bark on the main trunk, it is very identifable.

The seed from the berry doesn't look right. And the leaves seem alittle different. Is there any galling at all on any of the leaves?
 
I have what I think is a huge old Hackberry in my front yard. We got hit with multiple mahor hail storms this year and it really damaged most of the trees in the area. The leaves have been brown pretty much all summer and I don't remember having any berries. This one has been eaten up by black ants. The base of the truck has about a three foot cavern all the way to the middle of the tree where the ants where. Im surprised its still standing but it just keeps kicking! Im sure it has seen alot of damage over the years. Ive been told it is soft wood but I had to drill through one of the limbs to hang a swing and it seemed hard as a rock.
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I took a few pictures this morning. I'm just not sure if it's Hackberry. Its a pretty small / young tree, maybe 16'. It is loaded with berries! One of the reason's I'd like to know if it's a Hackberry.

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Looks like Common Buckthorn to me (Rhamnus cathartica). Not something you want to eat.

Even the birds don't usually eat them.

Doc
 
Thanks for help. I am just learning plant identification and have a long way to go.
 
KFU said:
I have what I think is a huge old Hackberry in my front yard. We got hit with multiple mahor hail storms this year and it really damaged most of the trees in the area. The leaves have been brown pretty much all summer and I don't remember having any berries. This one has been eaten up by black ants. The base of the truck has about a three foot cavern all the way to the middle of the tree where the ants where. Im surprised its still standing but it just keeps kicking! Im sure it has seen alot of damage over the years. Ive been told it is soft wood but I had to drill through one of the limbs to hang a swing and it seemed hard as a rock.
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The tree in your pics is definitely a hackberry and the best thing you can do is chop that sucker down before it falls on your house or the limb falls with your kid in the swing. Those things are notorious for falling branches and splitting down the middle and carpenter ants love em as you already know. The only thing that might be worse for breakage is a Bradford Pear but at least they are pretty for a while.
 
Every big wind storm cleans out a few more Bradford Pears. When they were first introduced and commonly available back in the 70's amd early 80's, they were the answer to the question of a fast growing tree that was strong. Time has demonstrated they aren't strong and they are a huge water guzzler in your yard. My neighbor finally had her Bradford Pears (a line along the property boundary) cut down after several wind storms of big portions of the trees falling across utility lines.

I'd get rid of the Hackberry as a yard ornament too.
 
I hate Bradford Pears too. They don't last long. The weird thing is this Hackberry has to be really old. I have lived here for 5 years and it has never dropped a branch and we have had tornados the last year or so. Every Fall I trim the limbs away from the house and the power lines and every year they grow back just as big.
 
Not to contradict doc Canada, but my botanist wife and I see some awfully prunus looking characteristics to the first couple pictures. Look to see if the fruit is single seeded (a la cherry pits) and look to see if there glands at the base of the leaf (you may need a magnifier, they may be small). Rhamnus has very distinctive veins, which do not seem to be evident from your photos. Lastly, that bark screams chokecherry to me.

I have a lot of experience using choke cherry (prunus emerginata) for jellies and cooking. The early inhabitants of this area used the high vitamin content of chokecherries to make it through the winters without scurvy.
 
Not the kind of Hackberry we have down south that's for sure. I would NOT try to eat them. Take a branch clipping and some of the berries to a local nursery and they can probably tell you.
 
Bolt-action bultema said:
Not to contradict doc Canada, but my botanist wife and I see some awfully prunus looking characteristics to the first couple pictures. Look to see if the fruit is single seeded (a la cherry pits) and look to see if there glands at the base of the leaf (you may need a magnifier, they may be small). Rhamnus has very distinctive veins, which do not seem to be evident from your photos. Lastly, that bark screams chokecherry to me.

I have a lot of experience using choke cherry (prunus emerginata) for jellies and cooking. The early inhabitants of this area used the high vitamin content of chokecherries to make it through the winters without scurvy.
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Hey Bolt-action bultema

Welcome to the thread. I don't claim to be a botanist, nor a plant biologist, etc., just a passionate amateur. Having said that, there's a couple of points I want to make.

1. I was not familiar with Prunus emarginata, so I checked it out. It appears that it is a West Coast shrub and according to the USDA range map, it doesn't grow where the OP lives (Southern Wisconsin), so I'm going to compare it with the Chokecherry that does grow in his region - Prunus virginiana. (Rhamnus cathartica also grows in his area)

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( picture from: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PREM )

Also, every common name reference I could find calls P. emarginata, Bitter Cherry as compared to our local Common Chokecherry (P. virginiana) Of course we all know how inaccurate common names are.

2. P. virginiana has fruit that grows in racemes (elongated drooping clusters) - not the case in the OP's pictures, although he says they grow from one stem???? His fruit are typical of Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica)

3. You mention that Rhamnus has very distinct veins and I agree, but R. cathartica has 3-5 leaf veins that curve sharply to the point as compared to P. virginiana, whose veins are more or less straight from the midrib to the margin. You will notice the strong curvature in the OP's pictures.

4. Another difference is that the leaves of R. cathartica are chiefly opposite with some sub-opposite and alternate, whereas the leaves of P. virginana are alternate only. Kind of hard to determine this from the pictures.

5. The leaves of R. cathartica have tips that are slightly folded to recurved as evidenced by the OP's pictures. The tips of P. virginiana are sharp and rather abrupt.

6. As far as glands at the base of the leaf (a la Chokecherry), R. cathartica has a pair of stipules at the base.

Anyway, that's all I got for the moment. Looking forward to your comments.

Doc

ETA: I was going to hop on my bike and ride down to the valley to take some pictures of Common Buckthorn, but saw that I did this already. (Scroll down to post 70, if the link doesn't take you directly there)
 
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