Bit of a strange tree ID one…

[whichtreewillitbe]

Hello lovely mumsnetters. In 2009 my dad took a photo of a tree on the field near his house for the entire year. We lost him in October (and have since used Life for a Life and had his ashes interred into a tree - I’ve been taking weekly photos to do a similar project as he did).

I’ve dug his 2009 photos out and have got 2 qs of the hive mind wouldn’t mind helping with:

1. Google/apple can’t decide if it’s a hairy birch or a poplar, any guesses on what the tree is?
2. DH and I went to the field today to see if the tree is still there so we could try and ID it. DH is adamant the tree isn’t there anymore but I think it is and it’s the tall one in the middle of the pic given that it’s had ~17 years of growing time. Are we team me or team DH?

Thank you 🌳

Sorry - pics are under review! Hopefully they’ll load soon. If you zoom in on the leaves I do think they’re quite similar on both photos

I think its the tall tree in the middle. A close up of a leaf would be helpful

Thank you! Will get an up close leaf pic when we’re next at my mum’s (not sure why we didn’t do this today - think we were too busy disagreeing with each other 😂)

Google lens will tell you what it is if you take a photo with it of the tree, or a close up of the leaves.

Definitely post a close up of the trunk and leaves. Both sides of the leaves, including how they're attached to the branches.

Google Lens is not that reliable when it comes to plant ID, and we're here to help :)

Good luck. 🌳 I hope you are right.

Thank you all SO much! I’ve been back today and have taken photos of the trunk and leaves, but I don’t have any close ups of dad’s 2009 photos as he took the photos in the same place each day. DH thinks that the OG tree has been removed (his evidence is a muddy bit that he keeps referring to as ‘the tree shaped hole’); I’m kicking myself as I think we had to take a couple of the photos for dad when he wasn’t well but I can’t remember exactly how far back the tree was!

The thing is, in the old photo it’s quite a bit forward of the line of fir(?) trees behind it but in the recent photo, it’s amongst them. Trees do grow outwards but that far? Even if there’s been new trees planted behind it in the last 17 years, they still wouldn't be as big as the others. Also, in the newer pic, the branches in the centre look lower than in the old pic

I meant a close up of a single leaf. Its not something i recognise from those pics.

@whichtreewillitbe I'm going to have a bit of a guess at this one: I think it might be a small-leaved lime - aka linden tree - tilia cordata. (not the citrus fruit).

Thank you - DH agrees with you, he thinks my potential red herring big tree is too far back and he says he remembers the dogs could run around and behind dad’s tree, whereas the red herring tree feels further back for him (but this is also the man who can’t remember what he had for tea last night…). He’s adamant it was where that mud patch is now which is about 2/3 of the distance away from the bench photo point

Ahh so sorry - the branches with leaves on start WAY too high up for me to be able to get a close up. DH is just over 6 foot and there were none in his vicinity either, they were a good few feet higher than him (the pic I’ve uploaded is on tiptoes with the phone pointed straight up)

Off to nosey on Google!!

I would guess a white poplar given the habit etc...

Yes it seems to have 1 side lighter in the leaves, which if slightly furry would indicate a poplar.

The bark on the trunk is wrong for a white poplar though.

An Alder tree?

Picture This (fantastic plant identifying app) says Black Poplar for all the photos.

BTW, you can’t zoom in on photos on mumsnet - they are uploaded at very low resolution only so it will just blur.

Trunk looks like a poplar of some description. Were there not any leaves on the ground?

Black poplar is rare and is Britain's most endangered tree. There are only a few thousand left in the wild so it is possible, but extremely unlikely, to be that.

In all fairness to the plant ID app, it was using screenshots of the photos to identify the tree 😁

From the bark though I would say it was definitely a Poplar, even if maybe not the rare one. Although they have to be somewhere so you never know...

OP can you ask the landowner if a tree has been removed ? The original tree, as noted, is forward of the tree line, but more firs could have been planted and grown up in that time, they are fast growing trees, and/ or the original tree line trees may have filled out a lot. It looks feasible that it’s the same tree, to me.