crawgarden said:Looks magnolia like
That was one of my guesses as well, and the cucumber magnolia seems to best match with my photos, except for the bark of the tree. The bark on this tree has what looks like short horizontal lines staggered all around the trunks. In image 5 there's 2 brown clumps which look like it could be 2 dead large flowers that rotted away and never fell off. I never noticed them myself, but the camera picked them up. I'll have to try and find those spots tomorrow during daylight if I can make out better what they are exactly.
ScottD said:Just a guess of a tree you might want to look at is black gum Nyssa sylvatica. Leaf looks similar, but like said not sure. The tree is known for it's Fall color so may help when see this Fall.
I checked out this tree, and I don't think that's it. The leaf shape is the same, but the leaves on my tree are very dull, not shiny at all as I've seen in pictures of the black gum. Also again the bark doesn't look like the bark on my tree at all. There are no small round berries as I've seen on the black gum images either.
The cucumber magnolia is still the closest match, except for the bark as I said.
Edit: I dug out some old pics I had taken in years past from the Chicago Botanic Garden near me of magnolia trees, and found a few good enough images that showed bark the same as my tree. So I did more digging and found this magnolia, Rustica Rubra Saucer:
https://selectree.calpoly.edu/...
This really seems like the closest match so far. Are these pod things that are sprouting now seeds or next year's flowers? If it's a magnolia, I'm absolutely thrilled, I love the flowers and look forward to seeing the trees in bloom every spring.
