Tree ID - and problem with falling leaves

I don't have a great picture of the tree in question on hand, but I'll post a series of pics that will give you an idea of the trunk, height, and leaves. In the last week this tree has begun to drop a lot of leaves (not all, but so many that it has us worried). It doesn't seem to be contained to a certain area of the tree, more all over (seems worse at the top). I thought it might be drought, but we have a sprinkler system & it's been getting water at least every 2 days. We just increased it to every day this week.

Anyhow, I have no idea what type of tree this is & I figured that's the best place to start when trying to figure out what it needs to get better.

Here's a pic of the trunk - it was actually taken to help identify the hole that you see. Which seems to be healing ok... I followed the advise of other DG'ers and just cut back a few of the rough pieces around the wound and let it continue to heal. This was about a month ago, but the wound had apparently been there for some time unnoticed.

here's a pic of the tree from far away (it's the one behind the gazebo w/ leaves showing up top)...

here's a closer pic of some of the leaves - shown at the top of this pic...

all these pics were taken a month ago before we had any problems with it...

Thanks in advance for your help identifying it and possibly the problem it's having!!!

Looks like a Silver Poplar. We had these when I was growing up and if memory serves me correctly they tend to shed leaves quite a bit.

Doug

It's a maple; best guess Freeman Maple (hybrid Red × Silver), but it needs a foliage close-up to tell for sure.

Resin

jenepat - Do you know what caused the wound - could it have been lightning?
Also, frequent, light watering keeps the roots of many plants, especially grass (though not likely your big tree's) to remain near the surface of the soil. If it's been very dry in your area, it may be beneficial to water less frequently, but for a much longer time - I water 2 x per week, for over 1 hour per zone, so the water will penetrate deeper. I don't know whether that could be effecting your tree, but you might check out under the dripline, & dig a narrow hole 8 or 10 inches deep, & check the soil moisture - it could be something simple like heat/drought stress. Or, if I know a tree is stressed, I'll just let the hose run (slowly) for several hours, so the water will soak in. I know many trees in our area are dropping leaves already - just from stress. But we are getting wonderful, soaking on-and-off rain today, so that will help!
Don't know whether any of this will help or not! Samantha

Thanks for the ideas on the type of tree - I'll try to take a few more pics this evening of the leaves close up to see if that helps ID.

Samantha - I have no idea what caused the wound. We just bought the house about 1 yr ago, and I'm not sure if it happened before or since then. It's on the back side of the tree (a side we don't readily see often), so I have no idea how long it was there before we noticed. It could very well have been lightning since we live near the top of a hill, but haven't noticed any other lightning damage. Do you know much about damage caused by lightning?

I think I will try to water it for several hours tonight with the hose - a slow run, I guess. We have a soaker hose I could hook up & have it run all within the drip line - does this sound like a good idea? We usually just let our sprinklers water for us, but may need to change them to run longer in each zone & less frequently. Right now we have them run for 10 minutes per zone each morning before sunrise (just changed to every day this week).

Well, if you look on the trunk above the wound, & see a darker "line", or, if that's not possible, if you see specific damage at the top of any tall branch, that would likely indicate lightning. It may not be possible to see until most of the leaves fall in a couple of months - whenever that happens in Texas.
As far as the watering goes, I would definitely recommend fewer days, with longer times - is your soil very clay-ey? We have sand here, so I have to water loooong to make a dent! I have a large yard, so I start at 3:00a.m.
Even with a deep water tonight - it may not remedy what is happening now, but, if it IS heat/water stress, it could prevent it from getting worse.
You might ask at a local nursery, or even your county extension service - they could probably help you more! Good luck! Samantha

Thanks Samantha!

Jenepat, try contacting the Texas Forest Service. Click on the country outline to get the address and phone number.
http://txforestservice.tamu.edu/main/article.aspx?ctrl=13

I think maple, too. I also thought about lightening. Not a very long wound, but it might be enough to kill the tree. It's been just about long enough , too.

ok, finally here's a close up pic of the leaves. they've stopped dropping as profusely as they were, and we got a good 1-2 inches of rain on Friday, so hopefully it liked that. still trying to ID the tree though, so let me know if this pic helps any of you out with ID. sorry it's a little fuzzy.

here's another pic of the other side of the trunk (undamaged side).

The bark wound is mechanical, not lightning. When lightning strikes a tree the sap boils and the tree usually dies rather rapidly. Also bark explodes from the tree and you find chunks of it scattered about. The leaf color is relatively good so there is no serious soil alkalinity problem. The wound should heal. Trim back all loose bark but don't cut into the cambium or any live tissue. Wounds are entry points for fungus diseases. The faster it heals the better. What is the fall color of the tree?

The real area of concern here is the branching at the base of the crown. I wish I could see a better shot of that. Narrow crotches make branches prone to splitting off. It looks like it needs some serious pruning for form and safety.

I have an oak that has been hit by lightning twice and it's not dead yet. But Snapple did have that part right if it was a lightning strike the bark would be blown all over the place. Resin was right it is definitely a Maple of some sort.

Doug

I learned something there postmandug. We've had a few lightning struck trees and not one lived the rest of the growing season. One huge oak split down the entire side from crown to ground. We weren't home when it happend. I probably would have had a heart attack. It threw bark over the roof of the house!

I have to say something about lightning strikes. I had about a 45 ft pines get hit, luck me i saw it. LOL. It blew pieces of bark off towards the base and the lightning blew a hole in the dirt at the base of the tree which was charred. Easy to figure out what happened after the fact. It didn't kill the tree and looked like it was healing up. About 18 months later I heard the sound of something major breaking in a tree. I thought maybe a big branch but after listening for a while I tracked it to the tree that got hit with lightning. I used a hammer to tap the tree to see if it was hollow or rotten and half of it was. I used the claw part of the hammer and started digging out saw dust for the most part. Half the tree from the ground up probably 12 ft was bug infested and totally shot. The noise was the wind blowing it back and forth.

End result was I cut down the tree right then and there, didn't want it to fall on someone. It still had needles on all the branches. I thought for a while that it would be fine but it didn't work out that way.

See if i have a picture. Notice the needles really don't look bad.

In my Master Gardener class the instructors said that the heat of the lightning boils the sap. The tree gets "cooked" on the inside. That's amazing about your catching that pine problem before it fell over.

The other two trees that were hit belonged to my next door neighbor. One they tried to save. Some of the branches wilted within hours of the strike. They pruned those off. Then one by one the rest of the branches went over the summer. The second tree got a lot of the top blown off and a crack in the trunk to the ground. The strike went down the center of the tree. It died before their insurance company could get there to get it removed. I always thought that once a tree got hit you didn't have much time until it was recognizabley dead. Not so!

Yeah mine was first hit about 7-8 years ago. It left quite a big fracture down the tree but it survived. Then about two years later it got hit again leaving a huge dark stain on the tree from about 7 feet high all the way to the ground. It oozed for about a year or so and has looked fine ever since. Both times I had bark scattered several yards out in the lawn. The tree is probably over 100 years old so that may have helped it survive. It has quite a massive trunk on it whereas it would have killed a younger tree.

Doug

hmmm, not sure if my problem is lightning or not since it could have happened before we even owned the house. but the good thing is, we've gotten several inches of rain over the past week and it seems the majority of the leaves that wanted to drop have already done so (leaving a still-full tree of leaves). so maybe it was just draught stress, or some other short-term stress. here's to hoping!!

thanks to all for the great response & discussion.

I would go tap around the tree and see if there are any rotten spots. Other than that it could just be drought.