Lookalikes

Common ash or false acacia?

Both stand bare and angular in a winter street, and in summer both have a big feathered leaf.

The quickest check

The quickest check is the edge of a leaflet. Common ash: toothed, the teeth uneven. False acacia: smooth, the round tip carrying a soft bristle. No leaves on the tree? Check the strong winter shoot.

At a glance

Look at	Common ash	False acacia
Edge of a leaflet	Toothed, the teeth uneven	Smooth, the round tip carrying a soft bristle
Strong winter shoot	Sooty black buds in facing pairs	A tiny bud between two short spines

Two ways to tell them apart

Edge of a leafletLeaves

Common ash: edge of a leaflet — Common ashToothed, the teeth uneven

False acacia: edge of a leaflet — False acaciaSmooth, the round tip carrying a soft bristle

Strong winter shootTwigs and buds

Common ash: strong winter shoot — Common ashSooty black buds in facing pairs

False acacia: strong winter shoot — False acaciaA tiny bud between two short spines

Think you can tell them apart now? Try the tree quiz: real photographs, and what gives each tree away.Take the quiz

The two trees

Common ash

Fraxinus excelsior

Ash has an open, airy crown on slender, curving limbs. Its leaves usually have 9 to 13 leaflets, and sooty black buds sit in pairs on its grey shoots.

How to identify common ash →

False acacia

Robinia pseudoacacia

False acacia is an open tree with twisting branches. Its long leaves carry many small oval leaflets, and its bark is deeply furrowed. Scented white pea flowers hang in clusters in June.

Their other lookalikes

Common ash or elder?Quickest check: the leaflets on one leaf

Common ash or tree of heaven?Quickest check: the edge of a leaflet

Common ash or English oak?Quickest check: the older trunk

Common ash or common beech?Quickest check: the older trunk

Common ash or honey locust?Quickest check: the leaflets

Common ash or sycamore?Quickest check: the whole leaf

False acacia or honey locust?Quickest check: the trunk

False acacia or rowan?Quickest check: the leaflet edge

False acacia or tree of heaven?Quickest check: the base of a leaflet

In the app

See them side by side in Treely

Both trees, part by partLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed through the year
Every lookalike side by sideThe checks that settle it, for every pair people mix up
A short round each dayUntil you can tell them apart at a glance
The full GuideBoth trees written up in full, with where to find them

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Free to download.

Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.

Photographs: steve_mcwilliam (CC0), bmapp02 (CC0), Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), bobwardell (CC0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.