המועדפים של slamonde

On right in all photos. After staring at a photo on a tentative nannyberry for way longer than anyone should I decided to go out and do a comparison study of two species. Findings were.... interesting.

Overall the two species were very similar. Below I'll go over the ID features commonly listed and thoughts not based on scientific fact but rather my own opinion. I welcome any and all feedback on these points or otherwise.

• Winged petiole: many guides state lentago having distinctively winged petioles. Both species seem to have winged petioles, and I wouldn't say that there was a huge difference between the two in plants I observed. I don't like this feature for differentiating the two, though perhaps it could be used in conjunction with others.
• Leaf serration: lentago clearly has more serrate leaves. V. nudum can have leaves that are pretty sharply serrate but not to the same extent, and nudum's leaves are extremely variable even within a single plant. V. lentago seemed more consistent overall in terms of amount of serration. I think a good comparison between the two would be that the differences are similar to what is seen in black cherry vs. chokecherry.
• Buds: shape is very similar between the two, maybe lentago has a bit more of a bend? I did notice that the colors are distinctively different; nudum being a warm brown vs lentago being purple brown. I'm not sure shape alone would do it for me but color seems distinct and reliable. Also worth noting is that the upper side of nudum buds was sometimes a bit more drab (bloom on upperside) so examining the entire bud will give a better sense for color.
• Flowers/fruits: this is one I don't understand and would love to understand it more, I'll quote Haines from the two. V. nudum is stated to have an "array of flowers elevated on a stalk 5-50 mm long" whereas lentago with "array of flowers unstalked". From my observation and photo, to me it appears nudum has tighter clusters of flowers, whereas lentago has loose flowers that are a bit more separated. If nudum has stalks and lentago doesn't, shouldn't nudum be the one with looser clusters?
• Size: I only looked at a few plants of each species but generally speaking nudum had larger leaves and buds. Not sure if this is a product of substrate/otherwise or it might be useful for ID.
• Seasonality: all of the nudum plants I looked at were still green, whereas lentago were clearly turning colors. My last photo was an attempt to show the two shrubs side by side, the green on the left being nudum and purplish on the right lentago. Situational, but perhaps useful from a glance?

(Originally I was torn between this and swamp fly-honeysuckle but the remnants of the flower appear to share one ovary and while in a wetland pocket it seems to not necessarily meet all the habitat requirements of oblongifolia).

@slamonde New-to-me sighting.

A couple of weeks ago as I was bringing in wood from our stacked woodpile outside, I found these under the woodpile. They are quite long, as you see compared to the pen - about 5-6 inches long? And were lying exactly as they are parallel to each other.
They were under a pile of wood that was stacked on parallel 2x4s in a space about 2-3 inches off the ground and bordered on two sides by the long 2x4s. Unlikely that it is animal scat as no large-enough animal would fit in that tiny space. I gently nudged one and it is very light. I put them back as I found them and covered them with a large piece of wood to keep the snow off of them. They’re probably some horribly invasive species, but in case they’re something native or special, I thought I should leave them be and protected.

No visible segmenting. Material looks like some kind of fluffy webbing with dark strands of hair-like fiber on the left one. I wonder if the hairy stuff was actually on the underside and I turned it over? No obvious hole though I didn’t move them much to see.

Can you shed some light on this?

Thanks!