Who Are You?

The first thing I looked at when I visited Barney today was his branches to see if they were opposite or alternating--what I found was that they were opposite. When referencing trees native to Indiana, there are only seven trees that have opposite branches: boxelder, white ash, buckeye, sugar maple, silver maple, red maple, and dogwood. My instinct told me that Barney's leaves look unlike any tree leaves that I observed during my time in Dunn Woods the previous week. After consulting my trusty tree chart, I concluded that my instinct was right. Barney is not a tree native to Indiana.

Barney's leaves are unique. They are small and thin, and have a light green color to them. They aren't in clusters, and the leaf itself is light, so I ruled out that I may have misdiagnosed the branches as being opposite because according to our tree chart, the silhouette of a shingle oak leaf looks similar, but it's not a shingle oak. I am confident in that. If you look closely at Barney's bark, it looks a big shaggy, or scaly:

He's a pretty big tree and by that nature, I guess that he's been around for a while. I'm going to say that he was probably planted there. But what I'm wondering is why an apartment complex was built around him, and what the reason might have been, if there is one, for Barney not being removed? His location is interesting. Anyway, Barney is enjoying spring and at some point I will identify who he truly is.