Looking for the official name of a "puzzle" tree/plant?

My boyfriend and I were on a hike and he spotted a tree/plant? whose leaves looked like a puzzle. The leaves were fairly big and they looked like they were puzzle pieces that fit into the leaves of another part of the branch.

I live in Northern VA/Washington DC. My boyfriend is from southern Maryland. When he referred to the plant/tree he called it a "puzzle" which I guess is what his family called it when he was young. But, when I google the name nothing comes up :(

His birthday is coming up and I wanted to get him this plant b/c his grandfather used to have one in his backyard. PLEASE PLEASE HELP! I wish I would have taken a picture. Thank you so much!

Describe the tree better- is it piney looking? Evergreen? I doubt it is a Monkey puzzle tree, but anything else you can describe?

Sounds like an oak, perhaps.

Edit: Oak leaves -
https://www.google.ca/search?q=oak+leaf&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=yMKdVYXpPIPtoASOxLqoBg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1284&bih=1232

This message was edited Jul 8, 2015 5:40 PM

I never heard or used that term, but by the description given the tree could very well be a Mulberry of some sort. Morus sp. would have been easy to have had in a yard generations ago, and to find on hikes today.

To wit:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/157415/

I thot of Mulberry, but they do have several oaks up there that would fit- it's just both are commonly seen...

So it is a tree...it wasn't very big on the trail about 5-6 ft. max. The leaves do remind me of an mulberry but bigger and wider with no symmetry. I found this pic on google:

http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/extension/4h/trees/Red_mulberry/red_mulbrry_leaves_lg.jpg

The third leaf (last one) is the closest thing I can remember.

Keep the suggestions coming! Thank you guys so much!

Each leaf was somewhat different from the one before in the size and amount "missing" of the leaf. I feel like I'm in a mystery novel lol.

Mulberry is incredibly variable. Scroll here to the chart with four green leaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_alba
Then there's
http://www.namethatplant.net/plantdetail.shtml?plant=224

How about a Sassafras tree?

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=i820





*neither image is mine. First one from nolacuisine.com, second from hearth.com

So its also found in western Maryland. The red-neck name (boyfriends said that this lol) is "puzzle plant" the leaves are large and fuzzy. I still haven't had any luck finding it.

Common fig - Ficus carica?

Al

It's a puzzle alright! Common fig is pretty hit or miss hardy (mostly miss) to Western Maryland, and not what I'd think is common enough to have the puzzle name.

Please, can you end our agony and get a picture?

Mystery solved... you guys were right from the beginning it was a mulberry. the reason it was confusing as the image illustrates, is that the leaves have variation depending on the maturity of the tree.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/urban-jungle/images/mulberryleaves.jpg

Glad you got it solved.

Now the question is...where can I buy one? I would like one that I can keep in a large pot, he lives in a condo so it would be growing on his patio? Also would like one that's been growing, but still young, no seeds. Any suggestions?

Specifically looking for white or red mulberry.

Side question, the mulberry we walked by on the trail didn't show any mulberries growing...Is it possible to have a fruitless mulberry tree?

Oh my, why would you ever want one? They are highly invasive. Most of what you see out there are not the native ones. It's possible the one you saw was immature and wasn't of fruit bearing age yet. Morus alba is the highly invasive white mulberry from China. The native mulberry in our area is the red mulberry but there are hybrids between the two growing wild and they get everywhere. I don't even have mulberry in my yard but every year I pick out 100 or more seedlings from our gardens or grass. If you really want one that bad, go dig one out of the wood's edge.

They dont do well in pots to my knowledge. I love mulberry, the males are fruitless and used in every suburban home- because they grow fast and die fast after a lot of problems. They truly need more room than a pot can provide. Its the ftuits I love, but I know to pre float the fruit to remove the worms from them.

FWIW - mulberry grows very well in containers. Their cultural requirements are the same as one of their close family members, Ficus carica, the hardy fig, and many thousands of growers tend them (figs) in pots.

Al

You may be able to keep it in a pot but it will take a lot of pruning - top and roots, ie: as you would a bonsai. Although the famous bonsai are about a foot tall, they can be any size you want them to be.

I have a 25 year old Ficus tree in a pot. I prune the top whenever I see a stray branch growing and I re-pot every few years and prune the rooting system so it will fit back into the same pot.

With some effort, you can keep a Mulberry the same way. Start with the smallest tree you can find and plan from there.

Daisy

I'm going to laugh out loud at the idea of growing any Morus sp. in a pot in Tidewater Virginia. Might as well try to keep Ailanthus under control by force of will.

It will likely fill the entire soil volume in less than a single season, and break its way out the next.

Unless you have pots like the Medici family (or House of Windsor), and an orangerie in which to roll them for the winter...

..... and I'll roll my eyes out loud at the thought you can't. A vigorous growth habit doesn't present much of an obstacle if you know a little about maintaining woody material in pots for the long term. How old would you guess the M alba seen below and grown by Walter Pall to be? Thousands of bonsai practitioners maintain Morus and even Sequoiadendron giganteum in pots that are often passed from artist to artist for generations - and very small pots at that. The common fig, close kin to Morus, has approximately the same level of genetic vigor as trees in the Morus genus, and many thousands of growers enjoy fruit from their containerized fig trees for years and years.

Al

This message was edited Jul 24, 2015 9:28 PM

I'm quite familiar with ancient bonsai - hundreds of years old Pinus thunbergii and the like. That's a far different endeavor than when the OP said: "I would like one that I can keep in a large pot, he lives in a condo so it would be growing on his patio?"

If the skills, passion, and devotion to the art of maintaining normally large plants in such condition (as you've well illustrated) were easy, it would be far more common - and I'd have less reason to laugh out loud.

Add to that many Morus are dioecious...

I personally would not try a Mulberry Bonsai of any size. I tend toward potted trees that have small leaves and a twiggy nature. Its easier to keep them under control. But, like I said, its possible.

Get out the pruning shears.

I'm attaching a photo of a ginko tree forest I started about 40 years ago. There are 5 trees; the tallest is about 2 feet. The second photo is a Hedge maple trio - age about 15 years and height is 12 inches.

In most cases, it takes hundreds of years for a tree to develop a mature looking trunk.

Diasy

IF the thread's author wants to keep a mulberry in a pot on his patio, it can easily be done. It would require an annual early-season pruning, some in-season touch up to keep it tidy, and regular root pruning at 2-3 year intervals, which should be a regular part of maintaining all woody material in containers over the long term anyway. If the owner of the plant would like to impose limits on the vigor with which the plant was genetically endowed, a complete defoliation once or twice during the growing season will do that nicely, and provide the tree with a pristine cloak of foliage after it's completed. That's rather easy.

This is easy stuff, and not beyond the ability of anyone who wants to make the effort to grow one. I help people apply a wide variety of techniques normally reserved for bonsai to improve the vitality and appearance of their houseplants and containerized woody material on an ongoing basis. Am I endorsing Morus as a wonderful choice of woody material? No. But I am saying it's no big deal if you want to grow the plant in a pot.

Here's one, 4 years in a pot (see pic), then recently chopped and just starting on it's journey. I have another, also under development in a pot, but no picture of that yet. It's well contained and happy/healthy.
It's sort of difficult to convince someone who's done it and seen it done repeatedly that it can't be done. Keeping the tree happy and attractive in a pot is pretty elementary stuff. Making a believable looking bonsai out of same is a separate issue and where the difficulty factor comes to play.

Al







This message was edited Jul 25, 2015 3:52 PM

Yeh, Tapla!

If your not someone who has spent some time growing trees in pots, it naturally seems daunting. If you're not daunted because you're someone who has spent some time growing trees in pots, it seems only natural.

Peace out ~ Al

I'm amused as several of you, whose opinions I highly respect in their different specialties, come at the question with a different focus and assumptions as to what the questioner might want to do. Great discussion! My original thought was as "... a typically containerized Mulberry (in untrained, undedicated hands) would be muscling its way out of any maudlin restraints of clay or plastic..." and ugly to boot. But when tapla talks, I listen, and this was very enlightening.

I think you can see by the plant I posted, which grew in a container to a ht of about 6' over 3-4 years before being chopped back as a potential bonsai candidate, that it's not impossible. It's in a training pot and the branching is one years growth from a bare stump, so it's a tree that will make a believable bonsai in a hurry. I actually rec'd several messages about this thread - all positive, so that's a plus.

I think that many growers have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to grow a mulberry in a pot. For me, the reason is pretty clear cut and isn't the reason the average grower would hold. Still, the reason has no impact on how hard or difficult it would be.

Case in point. Another member of the family Moraceae (the mulberry family), is Ficus carica, the common fig. The level of genetic vigor Mother Nature endowed it with is every bit the equal of the lowly mulberry, yet thousands of growers tend the plant in pots in every part of the country, especially in areas where it's not cold hardy. They prune as required and lift the plant from the pot and prune roots to ease root congestion and the accompanying decrease in vitality. Done deal - enjoy the fruit.

Finally, because container culture is naturally limiting, the plants with the most vigor are the best candidates for tolerating containerized conditions. BTW - vigor is a genetic trait, vitality is a measure of how well a plant is able to deal with the cultural conditions under which it finds itself growing. If all we grew were genetically weak plants in pots, we'd have a much higher % of failures.

Anyway, I could outline what's required to grow a mulberry (or fig or maple or pine or juniper or giant redwood or .......) in a pot for an indefinite term in under 2 mi, and direct anyone who wants to know how to a thread that explains it in detail in less time. It's not a big deal once you get past the question of why would anyone want to grow a mulberry in a pot?

Al