There are three basic leaf types.
Identifying hardwood trees by their leaves.
Hardwood trees are distinguished from evergreen trees because they lose their leaves when the weather grows cold a mechanism that protects the trees from dehydration when groundwater freezes during the winter.
They have rounded or pointed knobs around the leaf.
Most evergreens have needles or scales while most broadleaf trees are deciduous meaning they drop their leaves when dormant.
Tree identification field guide.
Ovate shaped tree leaves can be rounded elongated or taper to a point.
How to identify trees by their leaves.
But you can also identify trees by looking at their bark.
There is much more to identifying tree leaves than just by their shape.
What tree is that.
There are dozens of different varieties each with their own unique leaf structures and shapes.
Hardwood trees lose their leaves each autumn.
Begin identifying your tree by choosing the appropriate region below.
The difference between round and pointed is that round lobed leaves mean that the oak is a white oak and pointed leaves mean the oak is a red oak.
The remaining 10 percent are softwoods.
The shape arrangement complexity texture and pattern of leaf veins will all help you to identify your hardwood tree.
When trying to identify a tree by its leaves you can also notice the venation patterns on the leaf as well as its color.
Softwood comes from a conifer cone bearing or evergreen trees such as pine or spruce.
Needles scales and broadleaf.
Red and white oaks are just.
The wood of these trees is generally hard and dense but there are exceptions.
When identifying leaves the first thing to look at is the arrangement of the leaves along the stem.
The texture and density of the wood a tree produces puts it in either the hardwood or softwood category.
Deciduous trees including oaks maples and elms shed their colorful leaves in the fall and sprout bright new green leaves in the spring.
However there are exceptions.
About 90 percent of all the trees in pennsylvania s forests are hardwoods.
At first glance this protective outer coating of a tree s trunk and branches may seem like an unending sea of gray and brown.
Our illustrated step by step process makes it easy to identify a tree simply by the kinds of leaves it produces.
Also the margins of these leaves can be smooth serrated notched or lobed.
Pennsylvania s forests grow some of the most valuable hardwoods in the world.
Trees that do not lose their leaves each year are called evergreen those that lose them are called deciduous we think of all conifers as staying green all year think pine trees like christmas trees and all trees with leaves as losing them.
