Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus nigra
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus lyrata
Description
Overcup oak is fairly easy to identify. The acorns are almost completely covered by their knobby cups. The leaves have long, narrow lobes and wide sinuses. In Missouri, it grows naturally only in wet forests along the Mississippi and Meramec rivers.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus bicolor
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus falcata
Description
This tree has two names as well as two leaf types! In Missouri, southern red oak, or Spanish oak, occurs natively only in our southeast and southernmost counties.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus alba
Description
Found throughout Missouri and in all kinds of habitats, the white oak is one of our most attractive, long-lived, and stately shade trees. Learn to recognize it by its light gray bark, rounded-lobed leaves, and distinctive acorns.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus macrocarpa
Description
Bur oaks can live for hundreds of years and become giants; many have legendary or historic status. As with most oak species, it can be identified by leaf shape.
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Scientific Name
Platanus occidentalis
Description
The white, smooth-looking limbs of sycamore rise over countless streams and river banks, as well as over sidewalks and city streets. The leaves, which somewhat resemble those of maples, can reach remarkably large sizes.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Liquidambar styraciflua
Description
The star-shaped leaves of sweet gum become even more striking in the autumn, when they turn various shades of gold, red, pink, and purple, often on the same tree — sometimes even on the same leaf!
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus velutina
Description
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.
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Quercus shumardii
Description
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.
See Also
About Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines in Missouri
There are no sharp dividing lines between trees, shrubs, and woody vines, or even between woody and nonwoody plants. “Wood” is a type of tissue made of cellulose and lignin that many plants develop as they mature — whether they are “woody” or not. Trees are woody plants over 13 feet tall with a single trunk. Shrubs are less than 13 feet tall, with multiple stems. Vines require support or else sprawl over the ground.