I can't see the leaves to tell for sure but the description you give sounds like sourwood and the bottom picture looks like there is a sourwood tree blooming. The leaves are a yellow green color, long and kind of look like they just hang from the tree. They don't stick straight out from the limbs.

Ours just started blooming last weekend. Black gum usually blooms really early in the spring - just after red maple and before the leaves come out.

 

Hokie thank you I have not Idea what sourwood looks like so figured someone on here would be able to help. Thanks alot.

 

You're welcome. I've been living around it all my live but noticed it for the first time last year and you are right it looks a lot like chestnut blooms except whiter. I have a sourwood behind my house and have been checking it with binoculars for two weeks just waiting for the bloom to start.

Enjoy your Appalachian Gold honey. IMO sourwood is the best honey there is...

 

Really can't tell much by the pic, but..... Sourwood usually has a poor growth form and is crooked, the leaves are relatively long compared to their width, the flowers are white, and it often has branches that seem to shoot straight up and are reddish. Blackgum usually has a good growth form (fairly straight), the leaves are somewhat wide when compared to length, branches usually come off at close to 90 degrees, and flowers are light green. If, in the top picture, the tree in question comes up from the left at around 45 degrees and most of it's branches and leaves are in the 'sky opening', then I'd say sourwood. Hope this helps!

 

Those straight shoots about the size of a pencil are a trait of sourwood, but once the new growth starts they get heavy and sag so the older growth is more "weaping" in habit. They are a great identifying feature in the fall and winter, but may not be apparent right now.

Also the old dried flowers from last year stay on the tree until the new ones open - but if it is in bloom they are mostly gone by now.

Sourwood leaves grow in kind of a spiral around the central stem and look kind of disorderly, whereas gum leaves are alternate from opposing sides of the stem and look more symmetrical and orderly.

It's kind of a hard tree to positively identify short of someone just pointing it out to you, and even then you will probably have to keep coming back to it to learn to tell it from gums and other similar trees. I know my trees pretty well, but until I got bees I didn't realize that there was a sourwood tree right next to my driveway.

 

Yes, here in Upper East Tennessee and South-Western Virginia, Sourwood is now in bloom.

Here is a picture that I took a couple of days ago with my phone.

Sorry for the poor quality, but maybe this will help you ID it.

Most of the trees, around here, are crooked as a dogs hind leg, since it is just under story.

 

Your land is awsome great pic,Im a flatlander myself.I looked up sourwood on the web just type in sourwood tree.I wanted to see what they looked like and would they grow around here.they sell for 60.00 and are hard to transplant acording to the site I was on.I didnt see any seed for sale but think Ill try something local.They did show a lot of good pics some of them were large trees growing next to houses worth checking out.

 

If you're looking to purchase sourwoods, check out arbor day.... I don't know anything about their service or quality, just found them before when I was looking to get seedlings.... Also have other seedlings that should be good for bees....

http://www.arborday.org/shopping/trees/treedetail.cfm?ID=147

Also, for tree ID, check out VT's site....

http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/data_results_with_common.cfm

 

Hey Darrell,

We live just north of you in Big Stone Gap VA. Our sourwoods are not in bloom yet. The sourwoods here bloom around the 1st of July. On a side note, I transplanted several a few years ago, they do take a long time to get established after transplanting. One of the sourwoods we transplanted got knocked over by the dogs. This tree came back from the root and is doing very well. My guess is you would see better growth rates from the small seedlings from Arborday.

HTH,

Shane