Field Guide

Black oak grows throughout Missouri, in upland woods, on glades, and along borders of woods and fields. It and scarlet oak were the primary colonizers of Ozark pinelands when the native pines were cleared in the early 1900s.

Shumard oak is worth knowing: it can rise to 100 feet in height and gain a trunk diameter of 5 feet, with wide-spreading, muscular boughs.

Pin oak is one of the easiest trees to recognize by its shape alone: It has a tall, straight trunk, an overall pyramidal or conical shape and, most notably, the branches on the lower third of the tree angle downward.

In Missouri, Nuttall's oak grows naturally only in Bootheel. With its limited range, and with steady destruction of its habitat, it has become rare and imperiled within our borders.

Northern red oak is a favorite for planting in streets and parks and is one of the most widespread and commercially important of the oaks.

Native to Europe and Asia, European, or black alder is planted widely as an ornamental. In some parts of the United States and elsewhere in the world, this species becomes weedy, even invasive. In Missouri, you are most likely to encounter it in landscaped areas, and not in the wild.

Poison ivy is a toxic plant that contains an oil in all its parts that, if you come into contact with it, can cause an intense skin reaction. Learn to recognize it, and sidestep it on your outings.

An attractive shrub with wide-spreading, graceful, recurved branches and bark peeling off in conspicuous thin strips, ninebark is found throughout southern and eastern Missouri on gravel bars, rocky stream banks, and bluffs along streams. It's very popular as a native landscaping shrub, too.