You may know how to identify trees by leaves, but when there are no leaves in winter time, how do you identify trees? Sometimes you can tell the species of a tree by looking at the form of the bark. Sometimes there are little differences in the bark and sometimes there are major differences in the bark. Bark can be smooth, flaky, or have ridges.
Young sassafras can have green bark, while a mature sassafras tree has green twigging. This is one of their main identifiers. Other trees have dark gray bark, and some have light gray bark. You can see bark varies in shape, size, and even color! An ash tree has a rough diamond shaped bark, and a beech tree has smooth light gray bark. It kind of looks like the skin of an elephant. Maybe you’ve heard of the mountain or chestnut oak tree whose bark has thick rough ridges. The black oak tree bark has more of a diamond shaped pattern while the red oak tree bark resembles ski trails if you use your imagination. Birch trees have smooth, flaky bark that is white to white gray in color. It also looks like it is peeling off the tree. As you can see, there are many trees you can identify by the color, shape, size and thickness of the bark.
Some ways we can identify trees during winter is by the location of the tree, the tree’s structure as well as the branching structure, and the tree’s buds. The location of the tree will help tell the species of the tree because different types of trees grow in different locations. A sycamore tree lives close to the water and has white, grey, and greenish camouflaged colored bark. Native Americans hiked to the tops of mountains and looked for the large sycamore trees to find a source of water because the sycamore trees live by water and are very easy to spot. Most of the time, if you can find a sycamore tree, you will find water.
Other examples you may find in nature could be chestnut oaks growing at the top of a mountain or red maples growing in the lowlands or by swamps. Trees live in different locations because of what they have adapted to. Some trees are adapted to wet ground while some trees like dry ground. Some trees have adapted to cold climates and some like warmer climates. Some trees are adapted to sandy soil and some trees like soil that is more dense or clay-like. This is why you will find totally different species of trees in different areas of the state and country.
You can also tell a tree species by their branching structure or buds. Different trees have different branching structures. Some branches grow up, some grow straight out, and some downward. Another feature that will help you to identify trees is to look at the length and width of the branches. For example, the white pine is taller than most other trees in our area. It has wild wispy branches and five needles. I could tell the species of the tree was a white pine from a half mile away because mature white pines are tall and stick out of the tree line. Green Ash trees have pointy buds, while the white ash tree has wide rounded buds. If you are trying to identify a tree in the winter, look at the identifiers I’ve given you, and you may be able to identify the species of the tree that you are looking at.
