Small Tree ID

[Kristl Walek]

I saw this small tree everywhere in Vancouver (early October)---can anyone help?

[mark smyth]

Isnt it Cotoneaster frigidus? http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/uploaded/images/plant_cotoneaster_frigidus___cornubia___1_69.jpg a very common tree here in the UK. There is also a yellow berry form

[Kristl Walek]

Also, I need help with identifying this small snake-bark maple.

[Kristl Walek]

Isnt it Cotoneaster frigidus? http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/uploaded/images/plant_cotoneaster_frigidus___cornubia___1_69.jpg a very common tree here in the UK. There is also a yellow berry form

Thank you so much, Mark....that IS certainly the tree!!!!
And I had to wonder why I had never seen it before in eastern North America---apparently not nearly hardy enough in my part of the world---why it carries the "frigidus" species name is beyond me....what a wonderful plant, though!!!

[mark smyth]

Would you like some seeds from yellow berries when I'm next past the plants?

[ichristie]

Hi Kristl, your other tree looks like Acer davidii var serpentine quite large eventually but a super Autumn colour,  cheers Ian the Christie kind

[Kristl Walek]

Well hello Mr. Christie...it was certainly a pleasure to meet you in Canada...and I am happy to know you are safely back home again.

Ian, this mystery Acer does not have entire leaves (unique to A. davidii I believe)...I've posted a couple more pictures to be clearer. Also, the bark actually changes with maturity to become what I have now posted. The earlier picture was of a fairly large (but younger) upward limb.

It was planted as a street tree in Vancouver, so I assume it will get to some size enventually --and, had already thrown off quite a few of its seeds, although some were still on the tree.

[Maggi Young]

Kristl, we have several Cotoneasters of this sort... we think of them as being C.  bullatus x frigidus hybrids! They are good and hardy.... only losing their leaves very late in the year.... well, early in the new year, really.

[David Shaw]

On the topic of Cotoneaster may I ask if anyone can suggest a name from a cutting I took from Leith Hall twenty years ago. The Cotoneaster is completely ground hugging and has smaller leaves than C. horizontalis. Where it has grown over a path we use it as a carpet to walk over and it withstands this treatment. It is moderately vigorous and regularly has to be pruned back, the resultant Irishmans cuttings growing readily. At Leith Hall the Cotoneaster attracted my attention by the way it had clothed the large rocks it was growing over. It would originally have been planted by the Aberdeen Group, SRGC when they gave the National Trust rockery a makeover many years previously.

[Michael J Campbell]

 David, your Cotoneaster could be, Queen of carpets, or Salicifolia repens.

[Paddy Tobin]

Kristl,

Your cotoneaster may be Cotoneaster X cornubia. I grow it in the garden and it seeds around lightly. Very easy to increase from seed and makes a large shrub/small tree in time. It has a very attractive set of berries in autumn and the thrushes adore them it seems.

Paddy

[David Shaw]

Thanks for your suggestion, Michael. I have searched for pictures of C. salicifolia repens but the leaves are wrong. However, this has rekindled my interest and I am now searching again - I had not realised just how many Cotoneaster there are. This is quite a spectacular foliage plant that has does not often flower or set fruit.

[David Shaw]

Bye the way Michael, when I started searching for this your response to me was already up on Google!

[Maggi Young]

Bye the way Michael, when I started searching for this your response to me was already up on Google!

Startling.... and very gratifying, how often an SRGC post hits the Google first ten, isn't it?   

[Kristl Walek]

I am still looking for identification possibilities for the Acer above. Any takers?