Learn Your Land

To the canoe builder, birch is transportation. To the chemist, birch is methyl salicylate. To the chaga fungus, birch is sustenance. To the land, birch is birch.

Pictured here are 5 birch trees that grow in North America. Notice how bark patterns are fairly distinct between species.

Yellow birch (also known as swamp birch and golden birch) has golden bark that peels away in strips. Black birch (also known as cherry birch and sweet birch) has darker bark that splits vertically and doesn’t peel easily. River birch has bark that peels readily and displays pinkish-orange colors. Paper birch (also known as white birch and canoe birch) has whitish bark that peels easily. Gray birch has bark that looks sooty.

Some people don’t like the weediness of birch trees. As pioneer species, many birch trees can be among the first woody plants to grow in disturbed areas. Personally, I enjoy chewing on the twigs of yellow and black birch for their wintergreen flavor. Sometimes I make a kind of birch beer using the twigs of black birch (along with sassafras and wild sarsaparilla). I enjoy seeing river birch in floodplains, as well as paper birch in a few scattered spots in Pennsylvania. When I’m exploring old fields and former strip mines, I don’t mind seeing gray birch.

How about you? Got any favorite birch trees?

1 year ago | [YT] | 1,326

Learn Your Land

How well do you know your oaks?

As it turns out, winter isn’t such a bad time to improve your oak tree identification skills. The leaves of oaks contain high levels of tannins. These tannins slow down the decomposition process, giving us ample opportunity to study oaks throughout the winter season.

Pictured here are the leaves of 8 oaks that grow in eastern North America. In this part of the world, oaks belong to a few groups including the red and white oak groups. A simple way to tell the difference between the two groups is to look for bristles.

Members of the red oak group have leaves with bristles at the tips of lobes. In the unlobed species (e.g., shingle oak), you will often see a bristle at the tip of the leaf apex.

Members of the white oak group have leaves lacking bristles at the tips of lobes or leaf apex. In most cases, the lobes look distinctly rounded and not sharply pointed.

Exceptions do exist.

In this image, members of the white oak group include white oak, swamp white oak, and chestnut oak. The rest all belong to the red oak group. Within a single species, variation in leaf shape is sometimes large. Access to sunlight often has a lot to do with differences in leaf morphology.

While winter presents a few challenges for successful tree identification, the task isn’t impossible. Be optimistic and approach tree identification like any other skill: commit, practice, teach, and learn.

1 year ago | [YT] | 1,314

Learn Your Land

New year = new skills. Why not learn how to identify oak trees in winter?

In eastern North America, oaks can be divided into a few groups including the red and white oak groups. In this image, white oaks are featured in the top row and red oaks are featured in the bottom row.

Bark patterns among oaks within a particular group tend to be similar, but subtle (and sometimes major) differences do exist. For example, white oak and swamp white oak share similar bark features (platy, somewhat shaggy), while chestnut oak is unique (ridged and deeply furrowed).

Looking at the bottom row, scarlet oak, pin oak, and northern red oak all have similar bark features, but the bark of northern red oak characteristically displays “ski track” patterns more consistently than the other two trees. The bark of black oak is typically the darkest.

If you find it challenging to identify oaks by bark alone, look for leaves still attached to the trees or those that have fallen near the bases of trunks. You can also look for acorns on the ground and try to figure out which trees produced them.

With practice, your tree identification skills will improve and you’ll be glad you put in the work. After all, and to slightly modify something Ben Franklin once said, an investment in knowledge [of trees] pays the best interest.

1 year ago | [YT] | 1,339