Plant id?

[Mirius]

Now, I'm almost sure that this horse chestnut, but those pointy young leaves are throwing me off. It's a small plant, but could be a sapling as this is a shoot off a woody stem thats been broken/cut off. The leaf stalks certainly appear to join with the normal U shaped joint. Apologies for the photo, I'm surprised the phone managed to take it at all.

 

[leon-1]

Well it certainly looks like a Horse Chestnut leaf to me.

 

[xylaria]

I know what you mean about the leaf shape, but veins on the leaf are offset in same way as horse chestnut, and you said the stem had the 'u' on it so I would say it was horse chestnut, but I am far from an expert on trees. For ID-ing purposes your picture is perfectly clear.

 

[fred gordon]

I'm going to differ here! IF it is a tree is it not Sweet Chestnut. The pointed, slightly shiny leaves look more like that to me. Horse Chestnut has a larger, rounder, less shing leaf (I think!)

 

[rancid badger]

That looks like no conker leaf I've ever seen and I'm looking at the three year old saplings in the garden now-
oaky dokey checked : 'The Trees of Britain and Northern Europe' by; Alan Mitchell and John Wilkinson and it looks like you may have a sapling of Heldriechs Maple. to be honest, this isnt the best reference book, as it only has pen and ink drawings as opposed to photo's. I cant find my other books at the moment but it might be worth googling Heldrichs maple.
kind regards
R.B.

 

[Mirius]

<grins> well I'm glad that I'm not the only one confused! Sweet chestnut does indeed have pointy leaves but they aren't palmate but individual. The shine is probably more down to the poor photo given the dim conditions - you can see that the alox SAK is badly overexposed.

Now I should point out that it is possible if somewhat this is something non-native because the woods where it is growing used to be a nursery a hundred years ago and there are a few oddballs here and there - though I've not seen anything else like this there.

 

[Freds Dad]

Don't think it's a horse chestnut but may be a variety of buckeye which is similar. Let it grow, if there are small boys hurling sticks at it in september then it IS a conker tree.

 

[rich59]

That is horse chestnut. They come up just like that in my garden. I think the leaves are only broader on mature trees. The U shaped base pretty well clinches it.

Good question though. Helps to refresh one's skills