Western Larch

October 2005
Bill Robinson emailed us these pictures which he took behind his house in Montana. Like all larches, the needles are shed in winter. Very interesting! I find the picture of the bark to be especially beautiful. Thanks Bill!

Black Walnut

Sudden Tract, Cambridge, ON
September 29, 2005
We took Jonah for a walk in this forest trail. He picked up a stick to play 'hockey' with this tree's fruit. We were amazed at the strong scent of the fruit.

Yikes!

Wow! This hobby blog is getting way too much attention! But I love it. To answer a few questions...

We are simply using a North American tree identification book that once belonged to Glenn's Poppa Lavender. It can be tricky to navigate through the book, and it takes more time than you think. You need to pay attention to the bark, tree shape, leaves, leaf formation, fruit, etc. There are several trees that we just gave up on because we couldn't figure them out!

There are a couple of great tree id websites, however, we can't take the internet with us everywhere we go.

We are going to try some local identification, however, the leaves are starting to turn and I guess at that point, we'll have to stick to the coniferous until spring/summer. Kathy - I would be happy to help you id that one tree nearby... is it still green?

We have decided not to pay attention to the latin names... Maybe once we become experts we'll add that to the mix. For now, we're just trying to keep this enjoyable! :o)

Sweetgum

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC
September 19, 2005
We novice IDers were surprised that this was not a maple tree because of the leaf shape. The sweetgum tree is a part of the witch-hazel family. It is not native to this area of North America.

Northern Red Oak

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC
September 19, 2005
This tree is not native to this area of North America

Bigleaf Maple

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC
September 19, 2005
Leaves are largest of any maple







As you can see, this leaf is bigger than Jedidiah's headidiah! :o)

Western Redcedar

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC
September 19, 2005

McKenzie Willow

Winthrop, WA
September 17, 2005
We found it interesting to learn that the current year's branches are yellow.

Ponderosa Pine

Winthrop, WA
September 14, 2005
There were a lot of ponderosa pine trees in this area.

Water Birch

Winthrop, WA
September 14, 2005
We were surprised this was a birch tree.
There were quite a lot of termites living in this specimen.

Quaking Aspen

Winthrop, WA
September 14, 2005
We thought for sure these beautiful trees were birch trees.

Our new hobby

We (Glenn & Sherri) have decided to take up "tree identification" as a hobby and we will document our identified trees here. You are welcome to visit, but we suspect you will quickly become bored.

Today we are in Winthrop, Washington, USA. I'll post our finds shortly, and that will be the start of a beautiful thing.