Field Guide

Golden rain tree is native to China, Korea, and Japan. It was cultivated in Missouri for years. Because it readily escapes from cultivation and is invasive, it is no longer recommended for planting in Missouri.

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.

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.

Red maple is one of our most useful — and beautiful — native trees. You can find it in the woods as well as in landscape plantings statewide. Many horticultural varieties are available at nurseries.

Sugar maple is a tree that inspires much “oohing and aahing” during fall color season. Its sap is famous as a source for maple syrup, but its use in landscaping and for furniture is also widespread.

A member of the maple family, box elder is often confused with poison ivy because its compound leaves sometimes grow in threes (though also in fives). A fast-growing tree, its winged seeds betray its relationship to other maples.