American basswood
These dull, green leaves grow to around 8 inches in length and have forward-facing teeth and a lance-shaped tip. In the fall, they turn a light brown and become hard and brittle. The nuts it produces once fed billions of birds and animals.
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Tree identification quiz
American chestnut
Bigleaf maple
Red oak
American chestnut
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The tree thrived on the East Coast, accounting for nearly a quarter of the trees in the Appalachian Mountains, but a series of diseases beginning in the early 1800s have rendered it almost extinct.
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Sugar maple
Black walnut
Flowering dogwood
American sweetgum
Star-shaped leaves that change from green to yellow, purple, and red in the fall adorn this tree, which grows between 60 and 70 feet. Growing throughout the United States, most varieties produce spiky, gumball-sized fruit that can be painful to the touch.
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Honeylocust
Red oak
Colorado blue spruce
Paper birch
Pointed leaves that grow up to 10 inches long distinguish this tree from other varieties in the same family. Leathery, green leaves in the summer turn a brilliant shade of red, orange, or yellow in the fall, before browning in the winter.
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Quaking aspen
Sugar maple
Shagbark hickory
Eastern hemlock
Dark green leaves turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red in the fall, and they feature five lobes with pointed edges. The sap from this tree is a popular pancake topping, with 40 gallons of sap producing 1 gallon of syrup.
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Paper birch
White oak
White ash
American holly
Peeling white bark with streaks of black and pink highlight the trunk of this tree, and the leaves are triangular with serrated edges. The green leaves sprout yellow catkins in the late spring, before turning yellow in the fall.
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Quaking aspen
Red maple
Staghorn sumac
Eastern cottonwood
This tree draws its name from its soft, green (yellow in the fall), spade-shaped leaves, which tremble in even the lightest breezes. The most widely dispersed tree in North America, it grows from Alaska to Mexico, except for the mountainless Southeast.
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Sabal palm
Black cherry
Tulip poplar
American beech
The leaves feature four distinct lobes with rounded notches in between. Yellow and orange flowers help give the tree its name, while its leaves turn bright yellow in the fall. It is the state tree of Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee.
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Red maple
American elm
Box elder
American basswood
This tree draws its name from the bright red flowers, twigs, and fruit, while its leaves, which have three to five lobes, change from green to bright red in the fall. The ability to tolerate a wide range of habitats makes this tree one of the most prolific in the eastern U.S.
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American elm
Hackberry
White oak
Black locust
This tree can grow up to 100 feet tall and draws its name from both the white underside on its leaf and its wood color when first cut. The leaves are roughly 5 inches long, with rounded, finger-like lobes that change from blue-green to a deep red in the fall.
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Eastern cottonwood
Butternut
Bur oak
American beech
Distinguished by its smooth, light gray bark, this tree contains elliptical leaves that can reach 6 inches long with ridges along the sides. This tree is native to the eastern half of the United States and grows anywhere from 50 to 80 feet.
The tree, which can live to 400 years, draws its name from the brownish-yellow sap that oozes when the bark is cut.
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American sweetgum
Unlike most deciduous trees, this 70-plus footer keeps its leaves in the winter to protect it from disease, shedding in the spring as new buds appear.
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Red oak
Using a baseball bat made from this tree rather than a traditional ash tree, Barry Bonds broke the record for home runs in a season in 2001.
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Sugar maple
Native to northern climates, this tree’s bark is naturally waterproof and was used in the construction of canoes.
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Paper birch
The largest known living thing on Earth is a grove of this tree in Utah, with 50,000 trees covering over 100 acres from a single root system.
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Quaking aspen
The Tulip poplar is among the largest hardwoods in North America, with a straight trunk anchoring a tree that typically grows between 80 and 100 feet.
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Tulip poplar
While Rhode Island made this its state tree in 1964, the largest of the species lives in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, standing 141 feet tall.
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Red maple
It is the state tree of Maryland, Connecticut, and Illinois, while the acorns it produces are a valuable source of food for a variety of wildlife.
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White oak
This tree’s soft bark is a favorite for carving initials into since it cannot heal itself and will preserve markings forever.
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RETAKE QUIZ
American beech
See if you can identify the leaves of these 10 commonly found trees in the U.S.
– Quiz content by Stacker