extremely mysterious seedling already in full leaf (northern Maryland)

last year

last modified: last year

Okey dokey. I'm really stumped by this one, that makes it all the more embarssing if this proves to be something obvious. I found this seedling in the lowest, coldest part of my garden, fully in leaf, on Saturday. Literally *nothing* else is even close to being in full leaf, given how cold the late winter period was. My one in ground P. mume is just blooming now.

Sorry my stupid camera refused to focus on the leaves, I can go back for a better picture. The leaf edges are very very finely serrated, and the leaves don't feel like a BLE, they feel paperly like a deciduous plant. But it's in leaf so full and so early, I'm mystified as to what it could be...seems more like a tough BLE with papery leaves that survived the winter!

The obvious guess for family are Rosaceae or Oleaceae, but, again, that's not helping anything come to mind! For example, I have a couple wild purple leaf plums or crabapples elsewhere, but it would blow my mind if they sprout and leaf out this much earlier than the parents.

AND they would be awfully thin...the only stone-fruit leaves I've seen that are this narrow are peaches, but I don't have any in my garden and I've never seen any planted in this county, much less in my neighborhood. Although I know the Amish up in Lancaster county grow peaches...so it's not impossible a bird brought a seed down here.

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Comments (4)

bengz6westmd
last year
last modified: last year
It was growing in the pot? And could those be the seeds underneath that it sprouted from? Leaves look cherry-like, but I'm not sure if it's alternate or opposite.. Super frost resistant -- don't know about you, but I've had lows of 24F (-4.4C) a bunch of mornings lately, even w/a warm afternoon.
UpperBayGardener (zone 7) thanked bengz6westmd
floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
last year
last modified: last year
Well, an obvious reason for it's being in full leaf is that it's an evergreen. That eliminates peach, plum and most cherries. It also has a reddish bud. Got any Photinias in the neighbourhood? P. serratifolia perhaps?
UpperBayGardener (zone 7) thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
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UpperBayGardener (zone 7)
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
Beng, I should have clarified that I potted it up because it looked interesting.

Floral that's a pretty good guess and something obvious that I had, infact, overlooked! There are Photonia around this area, generally, but not too many - I'm not aware of any in my neighborhood. I was about to rule it out - we had 'Red Tip' Photinias in my parent's garden and I never saw them self seeding. But then decided to check in Google. In fact, deciduous Photinia villosa, which I'd never heard of, is becoming invasive in the I-95 corridor around NYC.

I wonder, since evergreen P. serratifolia or X fraseri would be the one to be planted in landscapes around here, if this could be a hybrid of one of those with P. villosa, that just leafs out extremely early.

Whatever it is, it's shocking such a delicate looking leaf could have been intact through the worst winter in 10 years. (I feel like this winter would have damaged evergreen Photinias, unless they were really happy and ideally situated)

I'm considering this tentatively answered, but I'll be observing the plant over the next few years. I had actually sprayed it with crossbow to kill some nearby bittercress weeds. I had to rush to save it by dunking it in a bucket of water, because the reason I use that one is it is rain fast shockingly quickly. If it had killed it, it would be dead already...because it takes action very quickly! OT but after 15 years of fighting them, my grounds are almost completely clear of all winter weeds. A huge relief. The year I got here, vast areas were onions, creeping charlie, bittercress, chickweed, violets, etc. etc. I only needed 1 gallon to address the stragglers. Even more important now to prevent them from surging back.
floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
last year
last modified: last year
"just leafs out extremely early."

Most Photinias are evergreen. So its not necessarily leafing out. I imagine it's been in leaf all winter.
UpperBayGardener (zone 7) thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK