Field Guide

American basswood is a common shade tree planted in lawns, parks, and along city streets. Recognize it by its leaf shape and texture, and by the unusual strap-shaped, reduced leaf attached to the clusters of small flowers.

Its range and interesting, variable leaf shapes identify water oak. Like many species that require wet lowland forests, water oak has been declining in our state due to long-term extensive disruption of natural habitats in our Bootheel counties.

A beautiful tree, swamp white oak features bicolored leaves that are shiny, dark green above and downy white below. When a breeze sets them in motion, their wavy or lobed shapes add a calm grace to a summer's hike.

Named for the cottony fluffs of hairs attached to its tiny seeds, cottonwood thrives in moist lowlands near streams and rivers. It is Missouri’s fastest-growing native tree but pays for that distinction by being relatively short-lived.

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.

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.

Willow oak's leaves are narrow, pointed, and willowlike, and like willows, this oak is associated with wet ground. In Missouri, willow oak is only found natively in our southeastern counties.