What is this tree?

[Jim Davis]

As the title says. It's in the woods near my sister's house in central Maine. Anybody up at this hour  (12:55 a.m. in Maine)

Jim Davis, in Kentucky

[Zuma]

Choke Cherry?
Zuma

[Pat B]

It should be pretty easy to ID the way the fruit is situated at the nodes along the branch.

[JoJoDapyro]

I thought Choke cherry too, but the fruit location doesn't look right for some reason.

[Josh B]

Looks like some variety of honeysuckle.  Don't eat the berries.  Decent bow wood, but checks easily when drying.  Josh

[Pat B]

Can we see the bark?

[Jim Davis]

Sorry,  the tree  is in my sister's  woods in Maine and I'm in western Kentucky, so I can't give you a photo of the bark,  unless  my BIL takes one.

Guys on the Leatherwall are pretty sure it's European buckthorn. Works for me unless a better candidate shows up.

Thanks for looking.

Jim  Davis

[swamp monkey]

Fellas I can rule out Bumelia genus buckthorns.  Their leaf margins are smooth.  I can also rule choke cherries in the genus Prunus out.  Their fruiting structure extends farther out from the stem and they bear more fruit per structure. 

Telling the difference between Carolina buckthorn (Rhamnus Caroliniana) and black chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa) is tough.  Black chokeberries have reddish dots on the upper side of the leaf, along the veins.  Carolina buckthorns lack these. 

Chokeberries have flowers and thus fruit at the end of the twigs.   Buckthorns have them at the axis of the leaves.   Your picture has fruit at the joint of hype leaves.   While my buckthorns here in Missouri don't tend to have so many fruit my reference says they can have up to  10 per axis. 

My vote is Carolina buckthorn based on what you have.   Kinda windy answer but I like to let folks know the why and the what.

[Griff]

judging by the leaf shape and fruit I'd say hackaberry. least that's what my father called the big tree in front of an old house of mine. the berries were hard as rocks if I remember right.

[Pat B]

Its not hackberry.

[Outbackbob48]

Here's my guess.    Looks like a Nannyberry to me but I am by no means and expert.  Bob

[Dakota Kid]

Rhamnus cathartica: common buckthorn or European buckthorn is my guess. The leaves looked to be the closest I could find and the fruit location and cluster size looked right on. If the berries each contain four large seeds that would help confirm my ID.

Nannyberry looks similar but the leaf veins look more symmetrical in nannyberry and the fruit stems looked brightly colored.

Carolina buckthorn didn't appear to have serrated leaves as defined as the ones in the pic above.

[Hummingbird Point]

Saw tons of that stuff growing up in Michigan.  We always called it buckthorn.

[riverrat]

first thought, buckthorn. i know "if" you find a decently long straight shoot of it, itll make a nice arrow. so itll more than likely make a decent bow too.Tony

[Badly Bent]

Looks like common buckthorn to me and yes its a good bow wood.