Hackberry

Some days ago, Lone Star Pa and I found four pecans in the backyard, which troubled us owing to the Lone Star Girl's allergies.  One was on one side of the back of the yard and the other three on the other side of the back of the yard, all near the back fence.  We have no pecan trees in the backyard that we know of - we have lived here eleven years and no tree has ever dropped pecans, anyway ... but we started to worry.  There are three trees, all of the same type growing not exactly in our yard, but right up against the other side of our back fence in three places, trees that mainly hang over into our yard.  They are pretty big and a neighbor said they might be pecans which made me feel very panicky.  Still, they had these little dark maroon berries all over them and that did not feel very nut-tree to me. 

I posted a worried post on FB and a friend (thank you, Joe) suggested both that they might be soapberry trees and that I should take a piece of tree to a nearby nursery and they would tell me what it was.  I did a little more research on the ever-so-useful interwebs and it looked very much to me like soapberries were a lot bigger than the berries on these trees, but I thought they might be hackberries.  Probably the pecans were squirrel deposits.

Today I took a sprig of leaves and berries to the nursery and they said they are hackberries.  Relief!