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Mississippi Gulf Coast, Zone 8b - They're in a neighbors' pasture and have been left on their own for many years. They're slow to come on in the spring and the first trees to look dead when winter brings cooler weather. The trees were there when the neighbors moved in and they have no idea.

I'm thinking chokecherry or something in that family. Prunus virginiana, perhaps. Also native plums look similar, but are often shorter shrubby thickets. You wouldn't necessarily see fruit or blossoms, but the very red color is typical of fall foliage, and often enough the new foliage.

I see this tree all over the place in S.E. Louisiana, but have never bothered to find out what type tree it is. Now I'm curious.

gumbo2176 wrote:I see this tree all over the place in S.E. Louisiana, but have never bothered to find out what type tree it is. Now I'm curious.

Yes, I see them all over the place so much that I hardly paid much attention to them before. I don't think they're chokecherry from the pictures; and according to the USDA Conservation Service, they don't occur in LA, MS or AL and seriously, these trees are all over. My husband made a shillelagh walking stick out of a piece of one and now he's wondering just what kind of tree it is and how long the stick would last.