Hey everyone Seth Hawkins community forester with the Georgia Forestry Commission here.
Welcome to another episode of our Ask the Arborist Tree Care video series.
Today we're going to be talking about some basic backyard tree identification skills
that you can use to make sure you know exactly what trees you have in your backyard. Different
tree species have different requirements and different growth habitat requirements.
It's important for us to know exactly what trees we have in our backyard so we
can make sure to provide everything that tree needs to thrive in its environment.
So we're going to be talking about some basic defining characteristics such as leaf shape,
leaf arrangement, bark characteristics, things like that. So we'll look at a few
common backyard Georgia trees and talk about how we can make sure we know how to identify them.
So here we have a tulip poplar. You'll also hear it called yellow poplar, tulip tree. The
latin name is loriodendron tulipifera. That way you can always know exactly what species you're
talking about with whomever you're talking about might use different common names. Some really
just key defining characteristics of a tulip poplar are the leaf shape and leaf arrangement.
So you can see this leaf almost shaped like a tulip flower so hence the name tulip poplar.
Also, later in the summer, you get these really big showy flowers that do look like
big giant tulip flowers again hence the name. But, this leaf shape and arrangement and those
flowers in the later summer are really key defining characteristics of a tulip poplar.
Another key defining characteristic of a tulip poplar is this kind of braided bark that runs up
and down the trunk. A younger tree is going to have a little bit smoother lighter bark. As it
starts to get older, it will become more ridged and furrowed and a little darker in patches and
you'll start to get more striations in the colors up and down the trunk. But, this braided kind of
ridged bark running down the trunk is another key defining characteristic of tulip poplar.
So what we have here is a white oak or the latin name is quercus alba.
And, white oaks are just an awesome native Georgia oak species. You'll find them all over the state.
They typically, in nature, prefer more upland drier sites. A little bit of a slower-growing oak
compared to some of the other oak species but also one of the longest-lived. Wonderful trees,
drought resistant, pretty disease and bug tolerant; again, just an awesome native Georgia oak species.
You can tell white oak it's pretty easy to identify by these rounded lobes and just these
individual just deep rounded lobes on all the leaves. It's a pretty quintessential looking oak
leaf. The International Society of Arboriculture actually uses a white oak as its logo: A white oak leaf.
So really the leaf shape is the big defining characteristic here. Also, you'll notice this really
shaggy kind of flaky bark on it and as these trees get older this will turn much more white
hence the name white oak. Another way you can identify oak species is using the acorns.
Unfortunately, this time of year we don't have a lot of acorns to pick from to show you.
However, if you ever get stumped out in the field trying to identify an oak species
and you can get a hold of some acorns, that's gonna be your best bet to properly identify that tree.
So what we have here is a Flowering Dogwood or the latin name Cornice florida. Another great native
Georgia species have beautiful showy flowers in the Spring. For that reason, I like to refer to
Dogwoods as a crowd favorite tree. People just fall in love with those flowers in the Spring. There's
different colors on the different varieties of Dogwoods. And, they just make for really beautiful
ornamental understory trees. You'll find them more in the woods and the understory underneath
the shade of existing trees. And, ideally planted in your yard in the same situation
mimicking that natural environment having the shade of overstory trees to protect them.
Dogwoods just don't really love to be out in that full-open sun. So when you're going
to identify a Dogwood, theres' a couple things you can really look at that will help you make sure
you're looking at the right thing. This leaf shape and texture is just kind of a giveaway once you
know what you're looking for but kind of getting more detailed. If you look at the veins on the leaf,
you can kind of see how they curl back to that center vein towards the end of the leaf and
that's a pretty unique characteristic of dogwood and pretty key defining characteristic for them.
Another thing you can look for depending on the time of year is either going to be the flowers
in the spring or these little droops that form in mid to late summer. So depending on the time
of year you're looking at the tree, you'll have a different formation here but again you'll see
these will turn really red in the fall and have that really distinct just dogwood look to them.
And, one other defining characteristic I always like to look at to identify dogwood is the bark
texture. So you can see on here how it's just kind of platy and individual little segments and just
kind of furrowed like that. So this really platy bark is a dead giveaway that this is a flowering
dogwood. So those were just some of the more common tree species that you might encounter in
your backyard or community forest. There are a lot of other tree species obviously native to Georgia
that we could learn to identify. Those are just some of the ones we wanted to make time for today.
But, if you want to learn to identify all the trees in your backyard, there are tons
of resources online. Also, go to ga trees.org and check out what we have on our website and we
invite you to go to ask the arborist where you can submit pictures of your trees and we'll help you
to identify the species. So thanks for watching today and we will see y'all in the next episode.