Please ID this - photo soon

[beemaster]

Okay, so I want you to ID a tree (which isn't a tree, but a weed) which grows as tall as a hundred feet.

It has mini branches about 3 - 4 feet long, with elongated oval leaves with a point on the ends. There are two leaves across from each other and evenly spaced down the small branch. Kids pull these leaves off with a single pass like rosemary and use them as WHIPS for kids sword fighting.

The Tree/weed has a cork like center, the leaves and flowering periods stink, they almost smell vomit like but not quite that bad. I have two of them with 3 foot trunks and 80+ feet tall.

They bloom (or whatever it is doing 3 times a season) in the Early Spring, they have white popcorn like flowers and they fall off, followed by another falling where mini grape-like branchs fall.

In early August, they flower a rusty red colored collection of hanging flowers (somewhat like Lilac) and they fall of, fermenting quickly if not raked up.

Lastly it drops all its leaves in the Fall like most trees - that mid-Summer one is a pain as is the Spring.

Oh, and they are EXTREMELY PROLIFIC

1) a tree drops enough seeds to totally take over a lawn and THOUSANDS of little trees sprout up through the grass.

2)They grown about 1 to 2 foot  a week in sun or shade. The only thing that stops there frightfully fast growth is they tend to grow up in clusters, limiting root space and size. But if left alone in good soil, you can have EASILY a 50 foot tree in 2 to three years, one that will spawn a million others like it if you let it.

CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT IT IS, I'll take photos, but 4ft long stems with rows of two leaves from the largest toward the base and tiny toward the end. But I'm always offended by the smell, and they are driving me nuts at the old house, I spend more time pulling out little trees or cutting them down with the mower than I do cutting grass.

Thanks, please send links with photos and I'll let you know if you are right :)

[danno]

is it a tree of heaven? Here a link
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=AIAL&photoID=aial_1v.jpg

[annette]

Wow!! Thank G-D they are at your old home. Sounds scary. Any buyers yet??

[beemaster]

Although there are several species here, the TREE OF HEAVEN is the BEAST - great find. It is sickening how invasive it is. There is a group of about 10 of them 10ft tall behind my new house's fenceline. I back up to an antique railroad line and I'm going to cut these down BEFORE they start seeding over my fence. They cut with branch trimmers if you get them young enough. Lordy, what an amazing WEED those 80 footers are. Thanks for finding it :)

Annette:

I'm not looking to sell yet, I'm slowly moving stuff into the new house as we have plenty of stuff and lots of time. I have two buyers though who want it for the property, since it zoned commercial - they need parking for their business expansions they want to do.

Right now, I'm debating having it torn down myself, to lower the property tax from about $4K a year to $500 for property alone UNTIL the market calls for a better dollar for the land. Either way, no hurry to sell - but I will wait for a better sale price if the market ever comes back a bit - commercial plays by different rules than residential, so I'm watching and hopefully in less than a year, I'll get top dollar from the buyers.

If I pay to have it towarn down, I'll loss that amount unless the land cost sale is at least equal to the tear down cost minus the huge difference in property tax. Thanks :)

[annette]

Boy, I know about the property taxes in New Jersey. My brother lives there and complains to me about it. Although it is very expensive to live here in California, I am grateful the property taxes are frozen.

Good Luck with it all
Annette

[KONASDAD]

I call it Sumac tree. The only redeaming quality is the bees get lots of nectar from it when other plants are unavavilable. They wuill and do grow anywhere and are considered and invasive obnoxious plant by all lower 48 states. They are everywhere!!!!
Tree of heaven is really from hell!

[BenC]

Not a sumac, but it's called that here too.  A trash tree if there ever was one.  Beemaster, cut them down and you'll still be fighting them, the roots will send up shoots for several years.  Have fun.  That corky center is called the pith.  Of coarse everyone here knows of pith helmets, being beekeepers.  Different tree but same part was used, corky pith was pressed into the shape of the hat.  When I was an orchardist the pith helmet was part of the PPE worn when spraying chemicals.  Excellent design for rainwear.

[danno]

the differance between these and summac is they reach 80-100ft high and 2 ft in diameter.  They are also very fast growing.  The only way to rid your self of it is a systemic herbicide.  The small one can be killed with a foliar such as roundup but if they are large with a truck over 4 inch they need to have a cut stump treatment.  Do a search on cut stump and basil herbicde treatments.  They will not go away without herbicide Sorry!!!