From the ground up: Many clues help to identify tree types

I love this time of year. We give thanks and celebrate all that we have. What makes it even better is if the meals that bring the family together include ingredients from local farmers.

This is a bountiful time for local food. Don't know where to find it locally? Ask the produce or store manager at your grocery store if they buy from local farmers.

Let them know you are interested in buying locally-sourced foods. Tell them about Iowa's Market Maker. Search online by product and location at ia.marketmaker.uiuc.edu for local farmers.

Field to Family also has a Buy Fresh Buy Local guide online at Fieldtofamily.org. It includes listings of local farmers, grocery stores that sell local foods and restaurants that have local foods on their menus.

This is also the time of year for raking, reminding us of all the trees that shade our streets, paths and parks in Eastern Iowa.

This week, Linn County Master Gardener Lisa Slattery helps you learn how to identify trees.

Tree identification is easy for some, not so much for others. My brother purchased some land this past year and asked for my help identifying his trees. Since my first visit was in winter, I knew he had a nice mix of deciduous trees (hardwoods that drop leaves) and evergreens (those that do not drop leaves). But it would require further investigation once the leaves grew out in the spring.

The first step in tree identification is based on characteristics including leaves, fruit and bark.

Broad-leaved or hardwood trees lose their leaves in the fall. Evergreen trees have needlelike leaves that hold on year around.

The next step to identifying a deciduous or hardwood tree is to determine its leaf type. What is the leaf composition? Is it a simple leaf (single blade leaf like a maple tree) or is it a compound leaf (with more than one blade like an ash tree). The leaf blades (single and compound) are attached to a single leaf stem which is then attached to the twig, where you find the bud.

After identifying leaf composition, the next step is to identify the leaf arrangement or how the leaves are placed on the twig. There are two arrangements, alternate/staggered (black walnut, honey locust or American elm) and opposite or directly across from each other on the same twig (sugar maple). After this ID, take into consideration the leaf shape and the leaf margin: is the leaf pointed (pin oak), smooth (white oak), or toothed (American Elm)?

Another characteristic to identify on deciduous trees is the kind of fruit, berry, nut, catkin, pod or seed (think maple whirligigs) it produces.

Like deciduous trees, evergreen tree identification starts with the needles, seeds and cones. Pine species have needles in bundles. Fir species have flat shaped needles and cones that sit upright on the branches. Spruces have four-sided needles and cones that hang down from the branches. Northern white cedars have flattened scale-like needles while common junipers have awl-shaped needles with dark berrylike cones. Eastern red cedars have scalelike and awl needles with berrylike cones. Larches and Tamarack trees have needles that grow on spur-like shoots and they are not evergreen, shedding in fall and growing new needles in the spring.

This is a lot to remember and we haven't even talked about bark, tree shape, size and form. There are some excellent tree identification guides online. I recommend starting with Iowa State University's Forestry Extension's Interactive Tree Identification tool at Extension.iastate.edu/forestry/iowa_trees/key/key.html. In addition to tree identification, this site offers general tree information, including tree biology, planning, planting, care and maintenance, index of Iowa trees and history of Iowa trees.

At my brother's place, my favorite tree is a deciduous Shagbark Hickory tree. However, after spending hours cracking the hickory nuts, I have a new respect for squirrels. They are some of the hardest nuts to crack. But I'll be making a hickory nut cake for Thanksgiving and planting a Shagbark Hickory tree next spring in my own yard.

Questions on gardening, land use or local foods? Contact Michelle Kenyon Brown, community ag programs manager at Linn County Extension, mkenyonb@iastate.edu.