Conifers/Softwoods
Eastern White
Pine
Pines are grouped or classified
in two basic ways. One of these is by the number of needles bundled
together at their bases. Eastern white pine is a five-needled pine
because it has five needles per bundle. Even though pines overall are
considered softwoods compared to hardwoods like oak and hickory, pine
trees are themselves also grouped as hard or soft. Eastern white pine
belongs to the soft pine group.
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Fig. 31 Eastern white pine twigs, needles and cone.
USDA-NRCS Plants Database Wetland
flora:
Field office illustrated guide to
plant species.
USDA Natural Resources Conservation
Service. |
Pitch Pine
Pitch pine is a three-needled
pine. It is categorized as a hard pine, as are most other pines with
fewer than five needles per bundle. The cones are somewhat egg shaped
when closed and more or less oval when open.
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Fig. 32 Pitch Pine branches, needles and cones
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Even though pines are
evergreens, they do shed and replace their needles, though not all at
once. The ground beneath pine trees is usually well supplied with
circumstantial evidence to help in identification. A tall pine whose
lowest branches are too high to allow an observer to easily see
details of its needles and cones often has an abundance of shed
needles and cones beneath it. So look for this circumstantial
evidence to help with identification.
Tamarack
There’s a group of deciduous
conifers—needle-leaved trees bearing cones that drop their needles in
the winter—called larches. The tamarack is a specific kind of larch
native to the northeastern US and its range extends northwestward
across Canada and includes parts of Alaska. Tamaracks have many
relatively short and soft needles bunched together at the base; the
needles generally turn yellow in the fall before dropping. Tamarack
cones are small and roughly oval, usually less than an inch long. The
tamarack typically occurs in wetlands, especially boggy areas.
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Fig. 33 Tamarack twig, needles and cones
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Red Spruce
Spruce trees, as conifers go,
are different from both pines and larches in that their needles are
not borne in groups or clusters but are attached singly to the twig.
The needles are comparatively short and fairly dense along the twigs.
There are three species of spruce trees native to the northeastern US
with ranges extending into Canada. They are the white spruce, red
spruce and black spruce. The red spruce has some characteristics that
are generally intermediate between the red and black. All three of
these spruces have cones that are relatively small. The white spruce
cones are the largest at about an inch, the red spruce are somewhat
smaller and the black spruce cones are smaller than those of red
spruce.
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Fig. 34 Red Spruce twigs, needles and cones
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Eastern
Hemlock
The hemlocks form another group
of conifers or softwoods having needles that are attached singly to
the twigs rather than in groups or clusters. Eastern hemlock, at
maturity, is a very large tree but has short needles, usually
measuring less than an inch, and small cones.
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Fig. 35 Eastern Hemlock twigs, needles and cones
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Balsam Fir
The balsam fir is a true fir.
It has soft needles, longer than those of hemlock, attached singly to
the twig as in spruce and hemlock. The cones are medium-sized,
somewhat barrel-shaped and grow upright from the branch. Unlike other
conifers in which the mature cone falls from the tree intact, balsam
fir cones disintegrate in place. Cone scales with their accompanying
seeds fall off, leaving the bare central-spiked axis of the cone on
the tree.
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Fig. 36 Balsam Fir needles and cones
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Eastern Red
Cedar
Trees in North America going by
the name “cedar“ are not true cedars; botanists tell us that there are
no true cedar trees native to the Western Hemisphere. But the common
name “cedar” is so deeply ingrained in our usage that for all intents
and purposes we’ll consider the trees that we call “cedar” to be
cedars. The eastern red cedar is one of these. This tree is
technically a juniper and it has small pointed, scale-like needles or
leaves. On the newer or faster growing parts of the tree the leaves
tend to be angled somewhat away from the twig and are prickly. On the
older or slower growing parts the leaves are appressed more tightly to
the twig. The Eastern red cedar is a conifer even though outwardly
the cones look for all the world like pale, blue berries.
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Fig. 37 Eastern red cedar twigs,
leaves/needles and cones/”berries.”
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Read Part Two
