Guess What kind of Tree

[Iska3]

It almost looks like a pig nut tree with a sucker growing along the side or a maple with suckers. We see this a lot in our diamond willow but that tree looks big for a willow or Alder.

 

[DFK]

That second one is a Hawthorn.
Looks to be HUGE.

David

 

[Gypo Logger]

It almost looks like a pig nut tree with a sucker growing along the side or a maple with suckers. We see this a lot in our diamond willow but that tree looks big for a willow or Alder.

You are correct by default. It is in fact a diamond willow. I have one here that is 6' circ. also known as beb willow with the largest growing in Alaska and the Yukon.
It's sought after for poles posts and walking sticks. The wood is dark red and burns very hot but has lots of ash. Although the heartwood is often dead, the sapwood continues the grow.
It also contains a natural source of aspirin in the bark which moose browse on after giving birth.
John

 

[Iska3]

I first wrote a diamond willow because I saw the dead center and the cankers on the sucker but I cut down a pignut tree this fall that almost looked the same. Kind'a funny what you wrote about the moose because many years ago, while hunting, an old trapper would always sit alone the marsh and wait for the moose to come out of the willows, he said the samething about the moose eating the bark. We have several deer stands along our willows and alders for the same reason. The deer like the willows, a lot of rubs in them.. Years ago I cut out several diamond willow limbs and used them to hold up my small apple trees; the apple trees died and all the willow grew in a long fence row.. I never saw a diamond willow and big as yours, ours might get to be 4 or 5 inches in dia at the most..