Lookalikes

Common ash or honey locust?

Both are big trees with feathered leaves, planted in streets and parks.

The quickest check

The quickest check is the leaflets. Common ash: usually 9 to 13, toothed, up to 12 cm. Honey locust: many small glossy leaflets, 2 to 3 cm, wavy-edged. No leaves on the tree? Check the older trunk.

At a glance

Look at	Common ash	Honey locust
Leaflets	Usually 9 to 13, toothed, up to 12 cm	Many small glossy leaflets, 2 to 3 cm, wavy-edged
Older trunk	Pale grey, shallow ridges in an even net	Purplish grey, in wide raised ridges
Winter bud	Sooty black, in opposite pairs	Minute and orange, about 1 mm

Three ways to tell them apart

LeafletsLeaves

Common ash: leaflets — Common ashUsually 9 to 13, toothed, up to 12 cm

Honey locust: leaflets — Honey locustMany small glossy leaflets, 2 to 3 cm, wavy-edged

Older trunkBark

Common ash: older trunk — Common ashPale grey, shallow ridges in an even net

Honey locust: older trunk — Honey locustPurplish grey, in wide raised ridges

Winter budTwigs and buds

Common ashSooty black, in opposite pairs

Honey locustMinute and orange, about 1 mm

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 →

Honey locust

Gleditsia triacanthos

Honey locust is a slender, open tree with feathery leaves of many small leaflets, often bright yellow when young. Most planted in Britain are thornless. The ordinary thorny kind, rare in Britain, carries clumps of long spines on its trunk.

How to identify honey locust →

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 false acacia?Quickest check: the edge of a leaflet

Common ash or sycamore?Quickest check: the whole leaf

Honey locust or false acacia?Quickest check: the trunk

Honey locust or rowan?Quickest check: the leaflet edge

Honey locust or laburnum?Quickest check: the leaflets on one leaf

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), cigazze (CC BY 4.0), Jan Sheppard (CC BY 4.0), Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.