I have friends who can identify the make, model and year of every car and truck that passes by. They pay attention to every taillight design, every difference in body shape and wheel size, and every nuance of yearly variation.
I don’t pay much attention to cars; I can only identify them by color and size. I do pay attention to trees, though, and I am slowly getting better at identifying their makes and models.
On a walk this week, I focused on looking at which have opposite branching patterns and which have alternate branches. Winter, when the branches of deciduous trees are bare, is a good time to do this.
Opposite branches put out shoots exactly across from one another. Alternate branches don’t; their twigs emerge staggered on either side of a stem, not directly across from one another.
A couple of years ago, a friend taught me to use this distinction to identify Oregon ash trees, which have the less common opposite branching pattern in the photo above. I had noticed that their branching pattern was unusual, but I hadn’t realized why.
I thank heaven for friends who know more than I do because tree identification books (like bird books) don’t always show pictures that look quite like the specimen I’m puzzled by.
Cascara is another tree that my mentor taught me to identify. I often had a hard time telling it from alder, which it resembles in shape and general appearance. I could only spot it when it sports its big dark clusters of berries in late summer. My mentor showed me that cascara leaves have smooth edges, and alders have serrated edges. Also, when it is leafed out, cascara is a different shade of green than alder. But now, when its branches are bare, I still can’t tell an alder from a cascara; to my untrained eye, the bark looks the same.
My biggest tree identification victory so far is that I correctly identified a group of aspens along the Chehalis Western Trail. Two things tipped me off: the shape of the leaves and the distinctive way they trembled in the slightest breeze. I had walked past these trees for years before I noticed them. When I did it was because I had aspens in my head from reading The Overstory, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Powers that includes a rapturous description of them.
At first, my naturalist friend didn’t believe me about the aspens; he said they only grow at higher altitudes. But I kept quacking about them until he came and saw for himself. Then he did some internet research and found that there is this one species – Aspen Vancouveriana – that grows close to sea level. This swelled my head and made me think my powers of observation might be improving. Someday, I might be able to reel off tree names as well as my car-loving friends can reel off makes and models.
What we notice and learn about is a measure of what we value.
Carefully observing the natural world – whether trees, bugs, birds, flowers or foxes – helps ground us in the reality of our kinship with them. The natural world gave rise to human life and sustains it every day. With every breath we take, we inhale the oxygen that trees and other plants create. We ought to value them at least enough to recognize them and say their names.
Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com
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Drutty
Enjoyed this article and it reminded me of a "Twig class" that I took years ago, which was held down the McLane trail. However, now forgotten all I learned ~!
Saturday, January 29, 2022 Report this
Annierae
I too really wish I could identify trees during Winter. I think Evergreen, or maybe it was Plant Amnesty, used to teach a class.
I'm so happy to know about Aspen Vancouveri**** I've seen aspen-like trees here (might have been on Chehalis Western Trail, come to think of it), and have wondered what they were. Thanks for clearing it up.
Saturday, January 29, 2022 Report this
TimRansom
Another surprise, to us anyway, is that there are giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) all over the place. Once you figuring them out (that great, sloping triangular shape) they become pretty easy to spot. We have been mentally mapping them throughout the SE Olympia region and basically are obsessed, to the point that we look for them everywhere we go. The largest (diameter of base, not height) we have found so far is in Jackson Park in western Tacoma. And we have one on our deck (in a pot) that is now about 12 inches tall--doubled in one year! Oh, and we learned that the predecessor to SPSCC made a lot of seedlings available to the public back in the 60s--probably why there are so many in the suburban areas of town.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022 Report this