How to Identify Southwest Trees

Anyone who has never been to the Southwestern United Stated would probably be surprised at the number and variety of trees that thrive here. Ranging from palm trees to pine trees to shade trees, the Southwest landscape is covered in them.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Full-color field guide on Southwest trees
• Binoculars
• Camera
• Three-ring notebook
• Unlined paper, hole-punched
• Plastic zip-lock bags, hole-punched
• Pens and pencils
• Colored pencils
• Crayons

1. Assemble your notebook with paper for notes and bark rubbings, as well as plastic bags for collecting leaves, fruit and flower samples. Since your interest in tree identification could last a lifetime, it’s advisable to use a three-ring notebook so that you can always incorporate new pages into each tree’s specific section to keep all of its notes together.

2. Find yourself a field guide to Southwest trees. Read it cover to cover, or just flip through, familiarizing yourself with the types of trees that grow in this part of the country.

3. Go out with all your tree identification tools – your field guide, binoculars, camera, notebook, pens and pencils, colored pencils and crayons.

4. Collect leaf samples, noting their shape, margins and arrangements. Leaf shapes may be needlelike, linear, rounded, oblong, elliptic, heart-shaped, ovate, obovate, lancelate or oblanceolate. Leaf margins may be entire (smooth), toothed, lobed or wavy. As for leaf arrangements, individual leaves will be either directly opposite for one another on the stem, or alternating on either side of the stem in a staggered arrangement.

5. Collect fruit and flower samples and put them in your plastic bags.

6. Use your paper and crayons to get bark rubbings. Bark details to note include whether it’s smooth, irregular, ridged and fissured, peeling vertically, peeling horizontally or rough flaking.

7. Make note of where you saw the tree and its surroundings. Is it on the side of the road or deep in the desert? Is it clustered in with other trees just like it, or standing alone?

8. Use your binoculars to see the tops of tall trees and note what you see.

9. Make drawings or take pictures of the trees.

10. Flip through your field guide to Southwest trees, using your notes, samples, illustrations and photographs for identification.

Tips & Warnings

• Any good field guide on trees will include photographic examples of the leaf, flower, fruit and bark details mentioned in Steps Four through Six.
• Create a system of lettering or numbering to keep your notes and samples in order. For instance, write the letter A on the notes, drawing, bark rubbing and sample for one specific tree.
• You can never have too many field guides, as each one differs in its presentation of information. For instance, that tree you’ve been trying to identify for weeks through one field may pop right out at you in another. And don’t limit yourself to field guides only about Southwest trees – field guides on trees in general can be equally helpful.