Field Guide

White ash leaves turn shades of yellow and purple in fall, and that is one reason it has been a popular landscaping tree. Many birds and mammals feed on the paddle-shaped seeds.

Existing in thousands of acres of nearly pure stands, shortleaf pine was once the dominant tree in much of the Missouri Ozarks. Today, Missouri’s only native pine tree is recovering from the extensive logging that had exhausted its old-growth stands by the 1920s.

By far the most common native conifer in the state, eastern red cedar is useful for its aromatic, red wood and beloved for its greenery, its resinous blue “berries,” and the spicy odor it lends the outdoors.

Many Missouri trees are quite useful, and shagbark hickory is a great example. Its wood makes excellent, slow-burning charcoal, its nuts are edible, and its wood is used for many implements. Wildlife from moths to squirrels to bats appreciate shagbarks, too!

'Bradford', a type of Callery pear, has been hugely popular in landscaping, but it can escape and hybridize with relatives. Alarmingly, it has become an invasive plant. Learn more about this problem tree.

Downy serviceberry is a tall shrub or small tree found throughout Missouri in open or rocky woods. It is one of the earliest spring trees to bloom, producing showy white flowers. The springtime flowers, the purplish, often sweet berries, and the brilliant fall color make serviceberry an attractive landscaping tree.

There’s no mistaking Kentucky coffee tree when its large, tough seedpods are hanging from its limbs or dropping to the ground below. Unpopular as food with today’s wildlife, these seedpods might have fed mastodons and other large, extinct North American mammals.