Tree Identification-- What's The Point?

Tyler Pastorok, Land Steward & Educator at Rock Point Commons

In our most recent session of Reading Rock Point, we spent the day learning all about trees. We asked questions like “What is a tree?”, “What are the parts of a tree?”, and “Which tree is this?” We spent a lot of time on that last question, building a foundation for tree identification skills. The day can be a bit of a firehose of information. On a short walk through Rock Point, you’ll easily encounter more than 30 tree species just along the side of the trail. 

At one point, someone asked, “What’s the point in being able to tell, say, a red oak from a white oak?” It’s a great question, and it caught me off guard a bit in that moment. I did my best to offer some pragmatic reasons - white oak acorns are a preferred food source for wildlife, red oaks tend to have a shorter lifespan, white oak wood is harder and more rot resistant. I also explained how in the next class, we’ll see how identifying trees can reveal other information about the landscape. The answer seemed sufficient and we moved on, but the question has stuck with me. The truth is, most of the times I practice identifying trees, it isn’t for pragmatic reasons. In fact, I can easily come up with some reasons not to identify trees. From an Animist perspective, focusing on scientific labels of other beings can distance us from their individuality. And regarding the utility of the skill, with a smartphone and an app like iNaturalist I may not need to know anything about a plant to identify it. So with all that in mind, what is the point?

White Oak and Red Oak, the most common oak species at Rock Point. Notice the round tips of the White Oak (left) vs the pointed tips of the Red Oak (right).

 When I first learn a new tree species, identifying one is more of a scientific process. I may need to check the branching pattern, the leaf margins, and other features to confirm which species I’m looking at. But with practice, intuition can be built. I learn to recognize subtleties that may be difficult to impart through words, like the way that Dogwood leaves pop out and catch my eye, and over time I learn to do so more quickly - the same way you may instinctually know which family member or housemate is coming up the stairs by the sounds they make, or recognize a close friend from a distance by their silhouette and how they walk. Evolution has wired our minds and our senses to do this kind of thing quite well, though the skills are applied much differently in our modern world. I wouldn’t consider myself a “car person”, but I can recognize the make and model of many vehicles without looking at what’s printed on the bumper. Just think about how many corporate logos or jingles you recognize immediately. Whatever the application, I think these skills help us feel at home with people or a place. Feeling at home involves a sense of familiarity and relationship to those around us. When we learn to identify trees, we are taking a step toward feeling at home in our local forests and depending relationships with their foundational inhabitants that we depend on. Tuning our senses to the features of trees is like bringing a blurry photo into focus. What might have felt like a mysterious sea of green takes shape as a complex assemblage of relationships and communities - different neighborhoods, each with their own character and reason for their location. 

The deep-cut, parallel veins of Dogwood species always catch my eye. Check your intuition by carefully breaking open a leaf, and you’ll find strands of latex inside magically holding the two pieces together!

At Rock Point, White Cedars cling to carbonate-rich bedrock cliffs while bearing the brunt of harsh lake winds and shallow soils. Just behind this buffer, Oaks, Hickories, Maples, and Ashes tower above, offering just enough sunlight for Hophornbeam, Basswood, young saplings, and others to thrive below. Buckthorn is new to town, but is scrappy and unafraid to take up any space it can find. Just around the corner, Hemlocks have set up shop with their canopy so dense and shady that few but their own young can handle.

Notice the change in the forest from right to left. White cedars claim the carbonate-rich dolostone outcrops closest to the lake (right), giving way to denser canopy of broadleaf trees further inland (left)

Identification offers us structure for organizing information about groups. While this can illuminate the mosaic of relationships and ways to live in the forest, finding belonging and a sense of home means going beyond labeling and categorizing. So when you’re drawn to a tree, whether you know the species or not, I encourage you to meet it with all of your senses and curiosity, and be sure to thank it for the oxygen you breathe, the birds it houses, and the fruits it may offer.

White Cedar’s love of dolostone on full display at a bend in the Holy Trinity Trail