Identifying trees

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It can sometimes be difficult to identify trees in a dense forest of mature trees. That is because some or all of the identifying characteristics, such as leaves or flowers, are high above your head in the crowns of the trees, partially or completely obscured by foliage. In some cases, using a pair of binoculars to peer into the canopy to see the shape of leaves may help.

You can also search for other, younger specimens nearby, the leaves of which may be more readily visible. Or, you can search on the ground for evidence, but it may not be certain that you can connect fallen leaves or fruits with the particular tree from which they came.

Thus, you're often left just with tree bark, preferably bark of a mature tree. Many tree species have distinctive bark, but some others don't. That is why we use leaf characteristics in this Plant Finder.

The other potential complicating factor related to tree bark is age of the tree. Bark of young trees may appear different from that of mature trees. For example, the bark of young birches, like black birch (Betula lenta) tends to be brownish or greenish, but becomes dark gray at maturity.

A special page showing images of tree bark has been created here. You may use that page if you can't see the leaves of a certain tree. However, only half of the trees described here have relatively distinctive bark. The other half have non-distinctive bark, and will not be shown on the special page. You can still view images of the bark of those trees on the species detail pages.

Click here to jump to the Bark Samples page, or proceed directly to the Plant Finder start page (See above link.).