dang this tree

limbs on it try to take my head off every other time i mow under it.
gonna trim about 2 inches from the ground this winter, i have no clue what kind of tree it is tho.

"fire" wood.

Looks like an Elm, possibly American Elm!

If it is indeed in the Elm family it's nearly worthless for fire wood, as it stinks when burned and leaves lot's of ash. The trunk doesn't look like elm to me tho, more like a Beech.

Bark looks similar to a beech?

Leaves look like elm and if you are using it for firewood, I hope you have a hydraulic splitter or you may have another winter burn just in axe handles. That stuff grows like a cork screw and I have had axes at near 90 degree to me when the axe head followed the grain and I was left holding the handle. Wood splitting nightmare.

All the beech I have ever seen the bark was smooth and a gray color

elm burns great , never notice any smell in good wood stove all the smoke goes up the chimney, burns hot enough to hardly smell anything from any wood.

elm has decent BTU and that's about all I worry about.

I do use a hydraulic splitter.

An elm variety and looks like firah wood.

My wife occasionally chastises me in the autumn as we are looking on natures beauty.
She is looking at the splendor and I am calculating btu's.
Can't help it. I was born to cut wood.

Zim

Looks like beech to me. The bark is so covered up by lichens you can't see the smooth bark.

It could be beech I suppose but if he lived there very many years I think he would have noticed some beech nuts sometime or other. The leaves do look right. It's that trunk that's throwing me off.
I have shot many a squirrel out of beech trees. It's one of my favorite mast trees as many critters use them for feed.
Where I come from, many an old woodsman carved their names or initials in that smooth bark.

Aint that the truth!

We live on the western edge of the largest beech forest in Europe. Our beech trees here have a shorter leaf, but around the farm beech is the preferred wood against chestnut and birch. We have oaks as well, but not as much. I agree about the beech nuts though... they are everywhere under the trees in the fall. For me, beech splits nicely... but especially when the neighbor shows up with the splitter.





Pete

don't think is beech, bark is lots darker than the other beechs here. and i have never seen it have nuts on it or under it.

I would guess beech or maybe chestnut, if chestnut it shoud produce burrs on it.

water beech or grey hysop or muscle wood but maybe a huge iron wood.

Mussle wood. They don't put on nuts that I'm aware of.

i say water beech honestly but things go by different names to different people and places.

It looks like American hornbeam-AKA hop hornbeam, iron wood, muscle wood, blue beech- from looking at the leaves.
The fruit looks, and hangs down like, hops from which beer is made. It grows most often in the creek bottoms and usually doesn't get very big.
If that's what it is, it's a big one.
A better look at the smaller limbs would let us know for sure.

I agree with Carl, this tree looks like American Beech with lichens and probably beech bark disease, which is why it looks so dark...

American hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) is a separate tree from American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana,aka Blue Beech/Musclewood). Hophornbeam bark looks very much like White Cedar bark.

I say American Elm.
Beech is a smoother bark

will try and remember to take the good camera out tomorrow after work and get better pictures

Get a closeup of a terminal bud (end of the twig).

Yes ^^^^..

The picture of the foliage that you have already shows a pretty good image of a leaf. It is NOT asymmetrical the way an elm leaf would be. I still believe it is a diseased Americana beech.

Well, I mark trees for a significant part my living, and I often tell people if they find a local native tree I can not ID (in person, pictures are incomplete information most of the time) I will give them $50 for teaching me what surely must be the very last one I did not know. Never paid yet. DOUBLE serrated leaves, and delicate twigs, put it in Betulacea Family. AKA the birch family to us common folks.

But that’s all I’m saying. I’m enjoying the speculation too much. Experienced foresters go by overall tree shape/appearance and growth habit/pattern more than leaves. No leaves in the winter....It’s in a yard right? That’s the only thing that gives caution for precise ID, many non native trees get planted in yards, and the differences can be subtle enough to require in person inspections or good pictures of certain features.