purpleinopp said:Is it the stump growing, or directly adjacent? Squirrels love to put seeds/nuts @ the base of trees. The pic showing when there was just 1 tree looks like oak.

Here are some pictures confirming the shoots coming off the stump are coming from the stump itself.

CPPgardener said:The stump is a Brazilian Pepper. Pinnate leaves, reddish tint to edges. The beads of shiny, sticky sap are also indicative of Brazilian Pepper not Oak. Crumple a leaf and smell it: if it smells 'peppery' then it's a Brazilian Pepper. Absolutely NOT Live Oak (sorry Bill). All Oaks have simple leaves and those new sprouts are pinnate. Around here Brazilian Peppers are very large trees, I don't see why they wouldn't be the same in the tropical jungle that is Florida.

Thanks! I totally agree. And what a strange tropical jungle it is lol!

I'm in the Brazilian Pepper crowd. In fact I'm positive and I am rarely adamant. Two things that may help you make up your mind are 1; BP has a very distinctive smell when the leaves are crushed, nothing like the smell of oak leaves or any of the other suggestions and 2; I live in central FL and have personally seen BP over 2' in diameter near the base and growing up as high as the top power wire. The wood of cut BP is reddish as your photo shows and the adventitious shoots that the stump is producing is one of the reasons it is such an insidious weed here. Birds spread the seeds and it often pops up under power wires from their droppings. As an aside although it is not a pepper it is edible and is the red berry that you see in tri-color culinary pepper mix.

Wildbloomers said:I'm in the Brazilian Pepper crowd. In fact I'm positive and I am rarely adamant. Two things that may help you make up your mind are 1; BP has a very distinctive smell when the leaves are crushed, nothing like the smell of oak leaves or any of the other suggestions and 2; I live in central FL and have personally seen BP over 2' in diameter near the base and growing up as high as the top power wire. The wood of cut BP is reddish as your photo shows and the adventitious shoots that the stump is producing is one of the reasons it is such an insidious weed here. Birds spread the seeds and it often pops up under power wires from their droppings. As an aside although it is not a pepper it is edible and is the red berry that you see in tri-color culinary pepper mix.

That is interesting about their being edible! I'll have to check them out next time I get the opportunity.

And thanks for the confirmation!

Whatever species it was, the point is, as OP acknowledges, that it was/was going to, interfere with live power lines and they had every right to remove it. In fact, they could argue that the owner is at fault for not properly pruning and maintaining the tree.

Either way, the fact that they removed it and didn't charge you a dime should make you happy. Tree removal can run into big bucks-hundreds at least.

They did no damage other than taking the tree. If anything else was broken or smashed in the process, well, that's how it goes with tree removal.

Do them and yourself a favor and kill that stump.

I am located about 30 miles southwest from the heart of down town Miami Florida in the agriculture area called the Redlands on two acres of former pine lands, I'm going to write an article for a botany blog on hurricane and vine resistant trees such as Schinus terebinthifolia (Brazilian pepper etc.). They eventually become giant shrubs with trunk diameters near the ground at least three to four times greater than the one in your picture. The interior wood on old trees is a beautiful red and the brother of a friend of mine sculpted such a trunk into a pair of perched eagles. Birds, especially migrating birds, spread the seeds. Many years ago I was surprised to see one sprouting through some landscape shrubbery near a hospital in Gainesville Fl. I have been trying to remove all the female trees in my yard as the males don't produce seeds and do produce nectar for the bees with which they are very popular. As I am now 76 years old and wheelchair bound from polio, the remaining trees, mostly along the fences around the edges of the garden will remain for someone else to remove. The roots are very invasive and will rapidly grow up into and fill any pots sitting under their canopy. Many aroids and other plants of deep shade will grow well under them or on them if they can be kept wet enough. I partially credit the screening effect of the tangled branches of these tree/shrubs for keeping flying debris from breaking any of my jalousie windows when the eye of Hurricane Andrew passed over my house. Big ones blow over, but they don't stop growing. After one hurricane, while the winds were still blowing I went out to check the damage and there was a red shouldered hawk on the ground under one of these trees taking shelter from the storm. Since I was five years old these invasive pests have been so much part of my life. EASe

eastev88 wrote "I have been trying to remove all the female trees in my yard as the males don't produce seeds and do produce nectar for the bees with which they are very popular."
I too have lived with this plant nearly my entire life, almost as long as EASe, but failed to notice that the plants are dioecious so thumbs up for that info. However bees travel great distances so that pollen is probably getting transferred to someone else's female trees. Maybe we can come up with replacement that isn't so invasive but keeps the bees happy. It's south Florida, there must be something that would work well.