Henry Homeyer: Bark, limbs and leaves help you identify trees in winter

By Henry Homeyer
©2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

If you like to hike or snowshoe in the winter, you might like to learn the names of the trees you see. Do so, and the trees will seem like your friends. No need to greet them as Sally and Bob, know them as sugar maple, ash or white pine. Let’s start with a few evergreen trees.

White pine (Pinus strobus) has clusters of five soft needles, each about 3 inches long. Branches grow in whorls off the trunk; each year the tree grows just one new set of branches, so you can see how fast they grow by observing the distance between whorls on the main trunk. From a distance you can see clumps of needles pointing up near the top of the tree.

Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) has short, flat needles that feel soft to the touch and that have a white line on the underneath side of each. It is one of the few trees in the woods that can grow in deep shade – as well as full sun.

There are several kinds of spruce (Picea spp.), but all share this characteristic, which will separate them from hemlock trees: Turn over a branch and observe the color of the leaves. If the needles on the top side and the bottom of the bough are the same color, it is a spruce. And spruce needles are pointy and sharp.

Recognizing bark is a great way to identify trees. Summer or winter, if you know the look of a tree’s bark, you can identify it. It takes practice, of course, and careful observation.

Some bark is very distinctive. Beech (Fagus grandifolia), for example, has a smooth gray bark that you can learn in moments. I love to run my hands over the bark, as if petting an elephant. Young beech, particularly, hold onto their leaves in winter, which is also a good clue. The leaves are oval with sharp points along their edges.

Most everyone can identify white or paper birch (Betula papyrifera) by its white, peeling bark that is easily removed from a tree by enthusiastic Scouts anxious to start campfires fires. Gray birch (B. populifolia) is similar to white birch, but it does not peel like its cousin, and has a dirtier look. Yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis) peels like white birch but is a golden or silvery gray color.

But did you know that young white birch are not white at all? They have a deep reddish black color and are spotted with small white dots or short white lines, lenticels that feel rough if you rub your hand over them. Eventually, after seven or eight years, white birch saplings will start to turn white.

Branching patterns help to identify trees at any time of the year. Most species of trees and shrubs have what is called alternate branching. That means that as your eye follows a branch, the twigs and leaves alternate from one side to the other. A limited number have opposite branching with twigs facing each other across a branch. Of course – just to confuse us – sometimes twigs or leaves have broken off on a tree like a maple that should have opposite branching.

There is a mnemonic for trees that have opposite branching: MAD Cap Horse. Translated, that means Maple, Ash, Dogwood, member of the Caprfoliacea family (honeysuckle, viburnum and elderberry, among others) and Horse chestnut. So if you see opposite branching, you can eliminate lots of possibilities.

Of the opposite branching trees, white ash is an easy tree to identify by bark: It has prominent ridges with deep furrows. It is dark brown or deep gray. The leaf buds are large and pointy, and new growth tends to be thicker than that of most other trees. Unfortunately this wonderful tree will probably disappear from our woodlands due to a foreign invader, the emerald ash borer.

Buds at the end of a branch are another distinctive characteristic of trees in winter. Red maple (Acer rubrum) and sugar maple (A. saccharum) can be distinguished by their buds, for example. Sugar maple terminal buds are sharp and pointy, red maple buds are blunt and reddish in color, especially as we approach spring. Sugar maple buds are grayish or purplish-brown. And the bark of an old sugar maple is distinctive.

Oaks have opposite branching and hold on to their leaves throughout part of the winter. There are two major groups of oaks: the red and white oak families. Both have lobed leaves; red oaks have pointy tips on their lobes, while white oaks have rounded lobes. A good tree book can give you clues to narrowing down which of the oaks you are seeing, though red oak (Quercus rubra) and white oak (Quercus alba) are the most common.

When not in the woods, you might want to be at a spring flower show. Plan to attend at least one. Here is the lineup:

• The Connecticut Flower Show will be in Hartford Feb. 20 to 23.
• The Philadelphia Flower Show is Feb. 28 to March 8.
• The New Hampshire Orchid Society Flower Show will be March 6-8 in Nashua.
• The Capital Region Flower Show is in Troy, N.Y., March 27-29.
• The Chelsea Flower Show, in London, England will be May 19 to 23.

Henry is a lifelong organic gardener living in Cornish, N.H. Write him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His column appears once a month.