Please identify this Mystery Tree

[TheNoodlesIncident]

Step this way, shove...

On the school run, we pass a garden with this tree in it. It's a large sapling/whip, planted in a large pot.

We managed to get a photo of it before the owners moved the pot no doubt alarmed at all the interest in their tree to further in the garden away from the boundary. But what IS it? I've looked in my gardening books but they're mostly of yesteryear from when I was actually training, so they may be out of date in that they don't include species recently introduced.

I NEED to know what it is, I really want one but am too shy to knock on the door of the owners to ask...

Pah, pretend fainting is nothing. I reckon I could do a full-on "possessed by the devil and requiring exorcism on your front lawn" for the sake of something really worthwhile.

All this reminds me that there is a very, very nice chocolate currant bush in my local park that is just glorious, and I am so tempted to go after dark and pinch just one of the ends of the huge bush as a cutting. Yes, I know it is wrong, but I would do it dressed as a ninja so it would really be like I was never there.

Chocolate currant?! I've never heard of it before and now I MUST HAVE ONE

If you take more than one cutting you could plant the surplus rooted cuttings back in the park. Then they will be ahead of where they were and your conscience will be salved!

The ninja costume is a must. In fact, if I had one I would wear to the shops to get my money's worth out of it

I have just googled chocolate currant, and all I get is recipes ( not in itself a bad thing ..:) )
So - how do you dress like a ninja - sounds a useful skill!

Oh dear, oh dear, I appear to have fried my brain. It's not a currant at all - tis a Physocarpus opulifolius or ninebark.

The thing about this plant is that it is really, really dark. Not just a bit brown, but a really dark purple almost black. I will try to get a picture! I have been looking for one in the garden centre that has a similar leaf colour, to no avail - they have all been browner. Hence the need for my very sophisticated ninja costume, which DH says is just black PJs and a balaclava, but he is just being disparaging. When wearing it, I look like a cross between Bruce Lee and Jo Brand. But invisible to the naked eye, obviously.