Oftentimes, people face difficulties trying to identify a tree species. Among the primary and distinct features of trees are their leaves. As such, we’re interested in finding out how to identify a tree species by its leaves.
Is it possible? It absolutely is!
However, the leaves of certain tree species may look similar to others. Nevertheless, there are always slight variations that differentiate leaves from one another.
Apart from the leaves of trees, there are other ways of identifying a tree.
These include flowers (for flowering trees), size, shape, bark, leaf buds & twigs as well as fruits and seeds. Although these are important factors to consider, we’re only interested in identifying a tree by its leaves.
Features: Tree Identification By Leaf
When it comes to tree leaf identification, different factors come into play.
These include leaf texture, color, type, appearance, and shape. You also want to take into account the pattern they’re arranged on the stem, their margin, venation, and more.
All these play critical roles in the easy identification of tree leaves. We’ll be covering more on these areas shortly.
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Tree Leaf Shapes
Tree leaves come in various shapes. These include acicular, acuminate, aristate, bipinnate, cordate, cuneate, and deltoid. Others include digitate, elliptic, falcate, flabellate, hastate, lanceolate, linear, and loped.
More leaf shapes include obcordate, obovate, obtuse, opposite, reniform, pinnatisect, even pinnate, odd-pinnate, perfoliate, pedate, palmate, orbicular, rhomboid, and rosette.
There are also spatulate shapes, spear-shaped leaves, subulate, trifoliate, truncate, unifoliate, and whorled.
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Tree Leaf Venation
Tree leaves come with a variety of venation systems. These range from arcuate, longitudinal, pinnate, dichotomous, palmate, parallel, reticulate, and rotate venations.
These nutrient transportation systems are critical to the identification process.
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Tree Leaf Margins
Another important feature that helps you identify tree species is the leaf margin. These edges come in different patterns that include ciliate, denticulate, lobate, sinuate, crenate, doubly serrate, serrate, and spiny.
Others are dentate, serrulate, and undulate.
Tree Leaf Identification By Type
Tree leaves come in varieties and types.
These include alternate leaves, opposite leaves, simple, whorled, lobed, compound, entire, toothed, single needles, evergreen conifer leaves, and cluster & bundle leaves.
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Alternate Leaves
You can identify a tree species by simply taking a look at its leaf formation. In the case of alternate leaves, they grow in a staggered format.
In other words, leaves on one side grow in-between those on the other side. Trees found in this category include the willow, oak, hickory, sycamore, birch, and mulberry.
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Opposite Leaves
Trees having this type of leaf growth include the eucalyptus, maples, olive, ash, and elders trees.
Here, a plant node will have leaves growing on opposite sides. Apart from this type of growth, the shape of leaves and formation enable you to narrow down your search to specific tree species.
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Simple Leaves
Here, a single blade grows on the stalk.
In other words, a petiole carries a blade of the leaf. These grow in opposite or alternate patterns on a stem. Most trees having this leaf type or formation include oak, maple, elm, and sycamore.
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Whorled Leaves
This is a unique leaf arrangement in which 3 or more leaves sprout from each node on stems. These types of trees are easily identified using such formations.
You’ll need to look out for these features when identifying a tree species
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Lobed Leaves
Maple and oak trees have pointed lobes, but what does that mean?
True to their name, lobe-leaved blades take the form of earlobes formed on one leaf. This leaves spaces or indentations of varying degrees between the lobes. This is known as the sinus.
With this feature, you’re able to determine if such leaves belong to the oak or maple trees. We’ll be providing you with easier ways of distinguishing these variations through the adoption of technology.
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Compound Leaves
In place of a complete leaf, compound leaves have tiny individual leaflets growing to form a complete leaf.
Individual leaves can be identified by the absence of a node. These leave types are common with horse chestnut, ash, hickory, and walnut.
Variations of compound leaves include pinnate, palmate, and double pinnate.
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Entire Leaves
These also go by the name unlobed leaves. Entire leaves mostly round or oval-shaped. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about them. In other words, entire leaves have no unique or special features about them.
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Toothed Leaves
These types of leaves are common to the ash, chestnut, hazel, rowan, and elms trees. True to their name, toothed leaves bear jagged or serrated edges. These go round the margins.
However, such serrated edges aren’t readily noticeable until you look closely.
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Single Needles
Single needles are mostly found on trees such as cypress, fir, spruces, and several other trees within the conifer class.
Unlike most other leaf formations, single needles attach directly to twigs.
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Evergreen Conifer Leaves
This category of leaves can either be soft or hard and are in the form of needles.
Evergreen conifer leaves encompass both single needles and cluster & bundle leaves. The latter (cluster & bundle leaves) is most common with trees such as pines and fir.
Using Technology to Tell Apart Tree Species By Leaves
With the advancement in technology, smartphones have increasingly become useful for a wide range of tasks.
These devices serve as mobile encyclopedias. This is made possible by tree identification apps that have grown in popularity and enable you to identify a tree in a few minutes.
Identify Through Apps
Here, you only need to snap the tree leaves to connect to a huge database where your image is compared with tons of others.
Some of the most popular tree apps include PlantSnap, Leafsnap, Pl@ntNet, PictureThis, Virginia Tech Tree ID, and Botany Buddy.
There’s more! Apps such as Plant Identification, Plant Snap, Seek, iNaturalist, and Tree ID offer a wealth of resources to help with easy identification of your tree species.
This guide provides you with tips on identifying a tree species by simply observing its leaves.
We’ve covered the different leaf shapes, sizes, types, and margins to help with ease of identification. This is made even easier by deploying technology such as the use of specially designed apps for identification purposes.