Field Guide

Introduced to the United States in the middle 1800s, Siberian elm pays for its fast growth with brittle wood that is subject to storm damage. Its large limbs are subject to splitting from the crotches of older trees. If you are thinking of planting a Siberian elm, you might want to think again!

Found nearly statewide, slippery elm has fuzzy twigs and reddish hairy buds, which often attract attention in wintertime. Its inner bark is reddish and rather slimy, which gives this tree its name "slippery."

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.

Common alder is a good plant to know. The dried female catkins look like tiny pinecones.

Exotic willows are available at lawn and garden centers, but there are several willow species that are native to Missouri. Most are rather humble colonizers of gravel bars, riverbanks, and lakesides. Many are important for human economic interests. All have a place in our wild ecosystems.

River birch is a native tree easily identified by its reddish, papery, peeling bark. It is used extensively in landscaping, where many-stemmed groupings are planted in moist places in yards and along streams and ponds.

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.

Swamp chestnut oak grows in Missouri's Bootheel swamps. The leaves look something like those of true chestnut trees.

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.