difficult ID

[Andy Henriksen]

Got a question for those of us that do forestry stuff for a living, or a serious hobby - what species do you consistently have a hard time IDing?  For me, of course it's those that are rare, because I never quite get familiar with them.  Things like butternut, for instance, I'm sure I've missidentified in the past.  Elms other than American, the less common oaks (scarlet, chinquapin).  Depends on the season, too, but ideally I'd like to be able to ID everything all times of the year, and at various stages of growth.

Also, for some reason I can never remember which hickory is which (except for shagbark, of course).  Does anyone have any tips, tricks, word games, etc. to help with hickory id? 

Andy, in MI

[SwampDonkey]

You folks have alot more species of hardwood down state. I'de have quite a time keeping hickories and oaks seperate in my mind unless i worked with those types of wood. I do know northern red oak and white oak and I know all our native species in winter or summer. There are quite a few southern species I could ID without difficulty, but there are many that would require the ID book. ;)

A person really needs to be familir with leave shape, buds, flowers, branching patterns, crown form (open grown or with competition) and even bark. You can group each species based on these features. This stuff takes alot of practice and working with, soon it will become second nature to id the tree. And what you have to do sometimes is observe closely, not just look from a distance. ;)

Take cherries for instance, the leaves have oil glands on the petiole, some have hairs on the underside along the mid-rib of the leaf blade (sweat cherries). Leaves are long and slender (lancelate). And so on..... A good dicotomus key will help ID most trees your not familiar with because chances are there are some features about them that are familier to you that will help place the tree into a group with others you know.

Hope this helps ;)

[populus]

SwampDonkey is right. Practice doesn't make perfect but it is essential. Practice with your local trees until you can ID them without a book, then keep practicing.  Hickories, for example, are not hard after you've carefully looked at  a few thousand  :D

Around here (Kentucky), oaks are tough, and throughout the southern US or California. Practice doesn't always help because oaks hybridize. I routinely see oaks in central Kentucky that I can't be sure of the species. I just looked at an oak yesterday that is a bur oak chinkapin oak hybrid.  So even an oak expert will be stumped fairly often.

A person with true proficiency in treeID does not need to key them out, but recognizes species just the way we recognize people in our family. However, it takes a long time working with keys to get to that point.  And there will always be those trees that stump you, for which keys and books are essential.

And always carry your book with you.  I recommend Preston's North American Trees. It has the best combination of line drawings, keys and good descriptions. Don't use the photographic books like the Audubon Field Guides - the pictures don't represent enough of the range of tree diversity, and they are not organized by family or genus.  You can supplement Preston with a local guide for less-common species or shrubs.

Of course, in Michigan you only have a handful of species, so you should be able to get them down in a few days  ;D

[Jeff]

Take a look at this old thread and a passage from Horace Kephart

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=45.0

"The sameness of the Forest"

[SwampDonkey]

Fits right in Jeff in every respect and more. I'de have to agree with the old timer that no one can't know everything about trees. Your head will start hurting before it all gets absorbed. Then as he said, you begin to forget alot of the knowledge you thought you knew. ;)

cheers

[Ron Wenrich]

My old dendro prof, Rex Melton was asked how to identify a certain type of tree one time.  "Well, it just doesn't look like anything else" was his answer.   :D

At first, we were taught on bark, branching pattern, and leaves.  Dendro wasn't too bad at first, then the leaves fell off of the trees.  That's when I learned to ID by bark and branch pattern.

My first forestry job after school was to scale logs.  So much for the branching patterns.  I went to bark only for ID after that.  Knowing the different species by bark was about the only way to grade some of the oaks.  Pin oak will never saw out to a top grade log, for example.  

Now I saw, and the bark is off of the logs...... :

I do know that when you go from one area to another, the bark changes.  Black and scarlet oak in my area looks a little different when you get to the other side of the state.

Practice won't make perfect, but it gets you pretty DanG close.

[hawby]

A week ago I had the local forester take a stroll through our woodlots. It was the best $50 I have spent in a long while. He pointed out many species that I did not know we even had on our six woodlots. I wish I could afford to do that a dozen times a year, cause maybe I could store 1% of everything that he shared with me in that 2.5 hours.

Species identification is just one aspect of forest management that I wish I had more knowledge of. Thank God that there are those willing share their knowledge with us.