Guide to Tree Identification: Needles vs Leaves

Trees With Needles

If a tree has needles instead of leaves, it is a conifer. The word “conifer” comes from the Latin words for “cone” and “bearing.” Conifers produce their seeds in cones. Conifer needles are soft, flexible, and have a leathery texture when you touch them. Needles grow in bundles on the branches. If you pull on a needle, it will detach from the branch along with all the other needles that grow in that bundle.

How to identify a tree with needles:

Do you have needles?

• Needles are always attached directly to the branches. There is no stem.
• Needles can be either evergreen, or lose their needles and grow new ones every year. (If you pick up a stick and shake it, are any needles falling off?)
• Needles are usually soft, but not always. Some trees, like juniper and yew, might look like they have leaves but they’re really scale-like needles!
• Do you have lots of tiny little needles attached to each branch in bundles? Junipers and pines have very small bundles of two to five needles. Spruces often have larger bundles of five to ten needles that feel like a stiff brush when touched! Cedars can also have these brushes of large needle bundles.
• What shape are your needles? Needle-shaped leaves tend to be soft and flexible; leaf-shaped leaves tend to be more rigid. If you need help telling whether something is needle-shaped or leaf-shaped, look for a sharp point at the tip of the ‘needle’ (if present) — this will distinguish it from a true leaf shape where there is no such point! Also check whether there’s an indentation on one side rather than just one line across the middle: if so then it’s probably not actually shaped like an actual needle at all – which means we call those structures “leaves” instead!

Trees With Scaly Leaves

Since we have established that conifers have needles and deciduous trees have leaves, you can use this to help identify the tree you are looking at. If ever you come across a tree with scaly leaves, it is going to be a coniferous tree. Common examples include the Larch, Douglas Fir and Hemlock. The Yew, Cedar and Juniper are also common examples of conifers with scaly leaves.

Although it may seem like a good rule of thumb never to trust anything with scales, trees are an exception in this case!

How to identify a tree with scaly leaves:

• To identify a tree with scaly leaves, look at the following characteristics:
• The leaves are scaly.
• The needles are bright green.
• The brances are slightly curved.
• The trunk is straight

Trees With Broad Leaves

Leaves can be divided into two categories: needles and leaves. Broad leaves are always flat, thin, and usually about as wide as they are long. Leaves are most often shed each fall in colder climates and grow back each spring. They turn colors such as yellow, orange, red or brown in the months before falling off the tree. The main deciduous trees with broad leaves include oak, elm, beech, sweetgum, sugar maple and red maple.

How to identify a tree with broad leaves (also called flat leaves):

Looking at the leaves can help you identify which tree you’re looking at, but it’s not an exact science. It might help to look at the way the leaves are arranged and the depth of their color, as well as the shape of their undersides. Many trees have similar-looking foliage, so learning which leaf shape to recognize allows you to make a more accurate prediction about what kind of tree you’re looking at. Depending on how much time you spend identifying different kinds of trees and where in your area they’re located, it can be a fun hobby that builds up over time and becomes part of your everyday life!

Trees With Compound Leaves

Trees with compound leaves are more common than trees with simple leaves. The most common type of tree with compound leaves is the deciduous species. If a tree has compound, opposite leaves, it is a member of the maple family. Another example of a tree with compound leaves is a winged elm. Winged elms have waxy, smooth surfaces and alternate leaf arrangement. They also have serrated edges on their leaflets that give them a jagged look.

You may also come across trees that have bipinnately or tripinnately compound leaves as well. Trees with bipinnately and tripinnately compound leaves generally have stems between each leaflet and no terminal leaflet at the end of their stems.

If you encounter any trees or plants whose leaves you can’t identify, make sure to consult your local nursery or garden center for assistance in identifying them correctly before attempting to take care of them yourself.

How to identify a tree with compound leaves:

Compound leaves have multiple leaflets on each leaf. Compound leaves can be divided into two types: odd-pinnately compound and even-pinnately compound. Trees with odd-pinnately compound leaves have one leaflet at the end of the rachis (the stalk that holds all the leaflets together). Even-pinnately trees have an even number of leaflets, arranged along a central rachis.

Examples of trees with compound leaves include poplar, hickory, ash, white oak, black oak and red oak.

Some trees have needles, some have scaly leaves, and some have broad and compound leaves.

There are three main leaf types among trees: needles, scaly leaves, and broad or compound leaves.

• Needles are found on conifers, or cone-bearing trees. These trees include pines, spruces, firs, larches and cedars.
• Scaly leaves are also found on conifers such as white pine and redwood. They have short green leaves that can be just a few millimeters long.
• Broad or compound leaves have wider stems so they appear to be more flat than needle-like or scaly. Deciduous trees with broad leaves include oaks (which have broad compound leaves) and maples (which have broad simple leaves).