The sumacs. Most shrubs (a few viney). Red fruit = safe to touch. White fruit = skin irritant (ex. poison sumac).
Fragrant sumac. Commonly cultivated as a groundcover. Foliage with strong, somewhat unpleasant smell. Trifoliate leaves make it look rather like poison ivy, but it has red drupes instead of white.
Winged or shining sumac. Shrub. Glossy compound leaves. Rachis winged.
Poison ivy. AKA Toxicodendron radicans.
Staghorn sumac. Shrub. Creamy yellow sap. All parts (including the red drupes) very fuzzy.
Japanese honeysuckle. Highly invasive twining vine from Japan. Sweetly scented flowers.
Amur honeysuckle. Highly invasive shrub from China.
Chinese bittersweet. Highly invasive vine. Ornamental yellow-orange fruit split to reveal red-orange seeds.
SEUS native species of bittersweet.
Burning bush. Highly invasive Asian shrub. Shocking red fall color.
Wahoo. Charming native woodland shrub. Pink capsules split to reveal orange seeds.
Flowering dogwood. Tree with showy white bracts around insignificant flowers. Pretty red drupes in the fall.
Occasionally cultivated in our area. Red-leaved (called "copper beech") and variegated-leaved cultivars are common.
From Japan and potentially invasive.
Sometimes cultivated in our area. Looks much like white oak (Q. alba) but with larger acorns dangling on long (2") stems.
From China. Cultivated but not escaped in Kentucky.
The cultivated European species are often called "lindens." The dried flowers are sometimes used to make a mild tea.
From Asia. Invasive here.
From Asia. Invasive here.
Hedge maple. Cultivated; often pruned as a hedge. Milky sap. Simple leaves.
Paperbark maple. Cultivated at NKU. Glossy, peeling bark, compound leaves. From China. Seeds typically sterile.
Box elder. Its green twigs are unusual for a maple.
Japanese red maple. Commonly cultivated. Relatively small trees. From Japan. The leaves often have 9 lobes, which is more than our other maples have.
Norway maple. Looks like a sugar maple on steroids, but with milky sap. The large leaves often have very long petioles.
Sugar maple. Most common maple in northern Kentucky.
Sun-warmed trees have a fragrance rather like rancid peanut-butter. The large, pinnately compound leaves have gland-tipped teeth.