Field Guide

A shrub or small tree with clusters of white flowers in the spring, and small, edible, red or yellow fruits in mid- to late summer, wild plum is a popular tree for landscaping.

'Bradford', a type of Callery pear, has been hugely popular in landscaping, but it can escape and hybridize with relatives. Alarmingly, it has become an invasive plant. Learn more about this problem tree.

Downy serviceberry is a tall shrub or small tree found throughout Missouri in open or rocky woods. It is one of the earliest spring trees to bloom, producing showy white flowers. The springtime flowers, the purplish, often sweet berries, and the brilliant fall color make serviceberry an attractive landscaping tree.

Eastern hop hornbeam is named for its fruits, which are clusters of flattened, papery, scalelike sacs arranged in an overlapping pattern, like scales on a pinecone — resembling the hops that beer is made from.

The dwarf chestnut oak, though only 3–10 feet tall and the shortest of Missouri's oaks, can nevertheless produce abundant acorns that are relished by several types of birds and mammals.

Persimmon is best known in the fall, when its orange, plumlike fruits come on. Be careful, however, to make sure a persimmon is ripe before you pop it into your mouth, or you could have a puckery surprise!

Osage orange is a densely branched, short-trunked, thorny tree. It bears weird-loooking, softball-sized, chartreuse, brainlike fruits, which often lie beneath the tree in abundance in autumn.

Chinkapin oak is fairly easy to identify because of its distinctively toothed leaves. Look for it growing in rocky soils derived from limestone or dolomite on bluffs and in upland woods, and in floodplain forests and lower slopes along streams.