• The Pines
  • The White Pine
  • The Pitch Pine
  • The Scotch Pine

• The Spruce and Hemlock
  • The Norway Spruce
  • Hemlock
• The Red Cedar and Arbor-Vitae
  • Red Ceder
  • Arbor-Vitae; Northern White Cedar
• The Larch and Cypress
  • The European Larch
  • Bald Cypress
• The Horsechestnut, Ash, and Maple
  • The Horsechestnut
  • The White Ash
  • Sugar Maple
  • Silver Maple
  • Red Maple
  • Norway Maple
  • Box Elder

• Trees Told by their Form
• Trees Told by their Bark or Trunk
• The Oaks and Chestnut
• The Hickories, Walnut, and Butternut
• Tulip Tree, Sweet Gum, Linden, Magnolia, Locust, Catalpa, Dogwood, Mulberry, and Osage Orange

How To Identify Trees

There are many ways in which the problem of identifying trees may be approached. The majority attempt to recognize trees by their leaf characters. Leaf characters, however, do not differentiate the trees during the other half of the year when they are bare. In this chapter the characterizations are based, as far as possible, on peculiarities that are evident all year round. In almost every tree there is some one trait that marks its individuality and separates it, at a glance, from all other trees. It may be the general form of the tree, its mode of branching, bark, bud or fruit. It may be some variation in color, or, in case of the evergreen trees, it may be the number and position of the needles or leaves. The species included in the following pages have thus been arranged in groups based on these permanent characters. The individual species are further described by a distinguishing paragraph in which the main character of the tree is emphasized in heavy type.

The last paragraph under each species is also important because it classifies all related species and distinguishes those that are liable to be confused with the particular tree under consideration.

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