Field Guide

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.

Scarlet oak is a common tree of the Missouri Ozarks. Today it occupies much the same area that shortleaf pine used to dominate before it was extensively cut prior to the 1920s.

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.

The bark of cherrybark oak looks like the bark of a cherry tree. When you hold one of the leaves with the leaf stalk upward, the pointed lobes make the leaf resemble an outline of a Chinese pagoda. This oak grows in Missouri's Bootheel.

American holly is Missouri's most durable broad-leafed evergreen tree. It is best known for its bright red berries and spiny green leaves at Christmas.

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.

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.

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.