Identifying Hardwood Trees By Bark

Pedunculate oak tree bark is grey.

Identifying hardwood trees by bark.

The wood from hardwood trees tends to be harder because the trees grow at a slower rate giving the wood its greater density. Old bark peels off in ribbons. As many as 40 different bark patterns have been identified on red maples. Most common hardwoods unlike the conifers or softwood firs spruce and pines hardwood trees have evolved into a broad array of common species.

In fact there are over a dozen different species of cedar that belong to several different families of trees some of which closely resemble cypress or juniper trees. Hardwood are used to reference the taxonomical division that separates a species and have little to do with the actual hardness of the wood. Diverse bark patterns red maple is known for its many varied bark patterns at different ages and stages of growth. Often also deep grooves and lenticel strips.

Hardwood trees have broad leaves and are deciduous they lose their leaves at the end of the growing season. Because of this you can consider identifying trees by bark to be like other types of tree identification options. How to identify trees by bark color. Identifying trees by examining the bark that grows on trees commonly found in colorado and the rocky mountain region.

Click on images of bark to enlarge. Apr 6 2018 explore steve ferrick s board tree bark identification on pinterest. See more ideas about tree tree identification tree bark. While many tree species indeed have gray bark some have bark that is cinnamon mulberry pure white birch silver beech greenish white aspen or copper paperbark maple in color.

Ash tree bark is smooth and pale grey in saplings. At first glance this protective outer coating of a tree s trunk and branches may seem like an unending sea of gray and brown. All you have to do is begin with a broad category of types of tree bark and then look at other characteristics. In north america the most common are eastern red cedar referred to as aromatic red cedar when in wood rather than tree form and western red cedar.

That way you will be able to tell slight differences in bark types that look similar. Apple crabapple bark ash green bark aspen quaking bark buckeye ohio bark catalpa western bark. With age the bark develops shallow grooves deep fissures and bosses. These pictures show just two of its more common patterns.

Hardwoods are angiosperms using flowers to pollinate for seed reproduction. Ask most people to describe a tree s bark and they ll say gray or brown and leave it at that.