What tree is this? Identifying a native broadleaf tree by its leaves
A leaf key to eastern trees: how to tell opposite from alternate and a leaf from a leaflet, which trees have lobes or teeth, and what to photograph for a name.
On this page
Pairs or singlesA leaf or a leafletTrees with leaves in pairsAlternate leaves with leafletsAlternate leaves with lobesAlternate leaves with teethAlternate leaves with smooth edgesWhen the leaf is not enoughCommon questionsSourcesLook first at how the leaves sit on the twig. Most trees set them one at a time, and leaves in pairs narrow an eastern broadleaf tree to a short list: maples, ashes, buckeyes, dogwoods, viburnums and catalpas. Next find the bud at the base of the leaf stalk, since a leaf has one and a leaflet does not. Several leaflets on a stalk with one bud at its base make a single compound leaf, as on a hickory or a walnut. Then read the edge, lobed, toothed or smooth. A toothed leaf with a lopsided base belongs to a tree such as an elm, a hackberry or basswood.
Jump to your leaf: Pairs · Leaflets · Lobes · Teeth · Smooth edges
Pairs or singles
Pick a twig that still holds several leaves and look where each stalk joins it. Leaves set in pairs are opposite, and most native trees are not. That makes the opposite ones the list to learn first:
“The list of trees with oppositely-arranged leaves and branches is a much shorter list than their alternate counterparts.” (Purdue Extension, Identifying Trees)
Catalpa sets its leaves three to a point or in pairs, and leaf keys file it with the opposite trees. Pagoda dogwood is the one native dogwood with alternate leaves, crowded near the twig tips so that they can look paired. Buds form where the leaves join the twig, so the pattern holds through winter, and winter identification reads it from bare twigs.
A leaf or a leaflet
A compound leaf can pass for a twig of small leaves. The bud tells them apart: one sits where every leaf stalk meets the twig, and none sits at the base of a leaflet.
“While a compound leaf looks like a number of simple leaves attached to a twig, the rachis […] has no buds, is not particularly woody, and is shed in the fall.” (Virginia Tech Dendrology, Basics of Tree ID: Leaf Type)
Leaflets set in two rows along the stalk make the leaf of an ash, a hickory, a walnut or a sumac. Buckeye leaflets spread from one point like fingers, and hoptree carries three. A twice-compound leaf branches again before the leaflets begin, as on Kentucky coffeetree and honeylocust, and a coffeetree leaf can run 3 feet long.
Trees with leaves in pairs
The table runs from leaflets to lobes, teeth and smooth edges. We do not grow boxelder, white ash, green ash, red maple or sugar maple. Each has a page of its own.
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| Blue ash | 7 to 11 toothed leaflets | Four-angled, often winged twigs |
| Boxelder | 3 to 5 leaflets, sometimes 7, coarsely toothed or lobed | Green or purplish twigs, often with a white bloom |
| Ohio, yellow, red and painted buckeye | Usually 5 toothed leaflets from one point | 1 to 3 brown seeds in a husk |
| Black, Florida, mountain and striped maple | 3 to 5 lobes | Paired winged seeds |
| Blackhaw, rusty blackhaw and nannyberry | Finely toothed, 1 to 4 inches | Dark blue to blue-black fruit in hanging clusters |
| Flowering dogwood | Smooth or wavy edge; veins arch toward the tip | Shiny red fruit in clusters of 3 to 5 |
| Northern and southern catalpa | 5 to 12 inches, often three to a point | Long, bean-like pods |
| White fringetree | Smooth edge, 4 to 8 inches | Fragrant white flowers hung like a beard in late spring |
Three smaller trees set their leaves in pairs too: devilwood, swamp privet and fevertree. Devilwood keeps its thick, smooth-edged leaves through winter.
Alternate leaves with leaflets
Every leaf in this table grows one at a time along the twig. The rows run from the fewest leaflets to the leaves that branch twice, and we do not grow honeylocust or smooth sumac.
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| Common hoptree | 3 leaflets | Round, papery wafers of fruit |
| Shagbark, mockernut, pignut and bitternut hickory, and pecan | 5 to 15 toothed leaflets | A nut in a husk |
| Yellowwood | 5 to 9 smooth-edged leaflets | The leaf stalk’s swollen base hides the bud |
| Black locust | 7 to 19 oval, smooth-edged leaflets | Paired spines on young twigs |
| Black walnut, butternut and little walnut | 10 to 24 toothed leaflets | Chambered pith in a twig cut lengthwise |
| American and showy mountain ash | 11 to 17 toothed leaflets | Clusters of red or orange-red berries |
| Staghorn and smooth sumac | 11 to 31 toothed leaflets | Upright clusters of red, hairy fruit |
| Honeylocust and water locust | Once or twice compound; leaflets ½ to 1½ inches | Thorns on the twigs |
| Kentucky coffeetree | Twice compound, 1 to 3 feet long | Very stout twigs with salmon-colored pith |
| Devil’s walking stick | Two or three times compound, up to 5 feet, with a prickly stalk | Very stout, spiny stems |
Tree of heaven, an invasive, carries 11 to 41 leaflets with a few glandular teeth near the base of each. Invasive trees and the natives they resemble tells it from sumac and black walnut, and white mulberry from red. For a plant with leaves of three, read poison ivy and its native look-alikes before handling it.
Alternate leaves with lobes
The oaks have a key of their own, read first from the bristles at the tips of the lobes. We do not grow sweetgum, tuliptree or sycamore.
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| American sycamore | 3 to 5 coarsely toothed lobes; the stalk’s base hides the bud | Bark peeling in brown, green and white patches |
| Oaks we grow | Lobed or unlobed, smooth or toothed; bristle tips on the red oaks | Acorns; a cluster of buds at the twig tip |
| Red mulberry | Toothed, unlobed to deeply lobed; rough on top | Silvery threads in a broken twig |
| Sassafras | Unlobed, mitten-shaped or three-lobed, all three on one branch at times; smooth edge | A spicy smell from a broken twig |
| Sweetgum | A star of 5 to 7 finely toothed lobes | Spiny gumballs |
| Tuliptree | 4 lobes, the top notched or flat; smooth edge | Buds shaped like a duck’s bill |
Sassafras and red mulberry both grow lobed and unlobed leaves. Sassafras leaves have smooth edges and smell fragrant when crushed, and red mulberry leaves are toothed and rough on top. White mulberry’s leaves are smooth on top.
Alternate leaves with teeth
For a toothed leaf, look next at the base, where the blade meets the stalk. On some trees one side of the blade starts lower than the other. Many of these leaves are doubly toothed, their large teeth carrying smaller ones. We do not grow black willow.
Lopsided base
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| American, cedar, slippery and winged elm | Toothed, most of them doubly | Flat, winged seeds |
| American basswood | Heart-shaped, toothed, 5 to 6 inches | Nutlets hung from a leafy wing |
| Common hackberry and sugarberry | Three main veins from the base; toothed, with few teeth or none on sugarberry | Corky warts on the bark |
Even base
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| American beech | Straight veins, each ending in a sharp tooth | Smooth gray bark; long, slender buds |
| American chestnut, Allegheny and Ozark chinquapin | Long, each coarse tooth tipped with a bristle | Burs of sharp spines |
| American holly | Evergreen and leathery, with spiny teeth | Red berries into winter |
| American hornbeam and hop hornbeam | Doubly toothed, 3 to 5 inches | A smooth, fluted trunk, or shreddy bark on hop hornbeam |
| Black cherry, chokecherry, pin cherry, American plum and Chickasaw plum | Finely toothed, 1½ to 5 inches | Fruit with a single stone |
| Carolina, peachleaf and black willow | Long, narrow and finely toothed | Catkins in spring or early summer |
| Downy, Allegheny and shadblow serviceberry | Finely toothed, oval, 1½ to 3 inches | Red to purple berries in early summer |
| Sourwood | Very finely toothed, 4 to 7 inches | A sour taste when a leaf is chewed |
| Sweet, yellow, river and gray birch | Toothed, most of them doubly | Small cones that shatter into winged seeds |
| Washington and cockspur hawthorn | Toothed, often lobed | Stiff thorns on the twigs |
American chestnut leaves are hairless on both sides, where the two chinquapins are usually hairy beneath. Chinquapin or chestnut tells them apart by bur and nut as well.
Alternate leaves with smooth edges
These leaves have smooth edges. A tupelo leaf may carry a few teeth, but most have none.
| Trees | Leaf | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| American persimmon | Oval or oblong, 2½ to 5 inches, paler beneath | Bark broken into square blocks |
| Black gum, swamp, water and Ogeechee tupelo | Smooth, sometimes with a few teeth | Pith crossed by thin walls |
| Cucumber, Fraser, umbrella, bigleaf, southern and sweetbay magnolia | 3 to 30 inches; smooth or wavy edge | Red seeds on most, late summer to fall |
| Eastern redbud | Heart-shaped, 3 to 5 inches; stalk swollen at both ends | Flat pods |
| Pagoda dogwood | Veins arching like a flowering dogwood’s; crowded at the twig ends | Blue-black fruit on red stalks |
| Pawpaw | 5 to 11 inches, often widest toward the tip | A green pepper smell when crushed |
When the leaf is not enough
Leaves vary in shape, size and color, even on one tree. Compare several before settling on a row. Why one tree grows two kinds is in sun leaves and shade leaves, and what a young tree looks like covers a seedling’s first leaves. Foresters lean on the rest of the tree:
“Professional foresters may rarely use leaves to identify trees, or they may only use them as one piece of the puzzle, because it’s only helpful when leaves are on the trees.” (Purdue Extension, Identifying Trees)
Fruit and seed settle many names, and what tree dropped this keys them by shape. To get a name from a photo, try the tree identification tool. Send the whole tree first, then one leaf laid flat on plain paper and photographed from above, top and underside. Add the tree’s height, your state and the month in the box under the photos.
Blue Whale Trees grows every tree in the tables but the few each section names as ones we do not. The native trees by state tool lists which of the trees we grow the USDA records growing wild in your state, a short list to check a name against.
Common questions
How do you identify a tree by its leaves?
Check three things in order: whether the leaves grow in pairs, whether each is one blade or several leaflets, and how the edge is cut. The steps narrow an eastern broadleaf tree to a few kinds, and its fruit, twig or bark settles the rest.
What trees have opposite leaves?
Maples, ashes, buckeyes, viburnums, catalpas, white fringetree and every native dogwood but pagoda dogwood. Most other eastern broadleaf trees are alternate, though devilwood, swamp privet and fevertree are opposite too.
How can you tell a leaf from a leaflet?
Look for the bud: one sits where each leaf stalk joins the twig, and none sits at the base of a leaflet. The stalk that carries the leaflets is not woody, and it falls with them in autumn.
What tree has mitten-shaped leaves?
Sassafras, whose leaves come unlobed, mitten-shaped or three-lobed, sometimes all three on one branch. Red mulberry leaves can be lobed too, but they are toothed and rough on top, where sassafras leaves have smooth edges.
What tree has heart-shaped leaves?
Eastern redbud’s are smooth-edged and 3 to 5 inches long, on a stalk swollen at both ends. American basswood’s are toothed with a lopsided base, and northern catalpa’s run 5 to 12 inches and grow in pairs or threes.
Sources
(6 references)
- Basics of Tree ID: Leaf Type: Virginia Tech Dendrology, with its pages on leaf arrangement and leaf edges: the quotation on the compound leaf’s stalk, simple and compound leaves, most trees alternate, the maples, ashes, dogwoods, honeysuckle family and buckeyes as the opposite trees, buds forming where the leaves join the twig, and smooth, toothed and lobed edges.
- Sassafras: Virginia Tech Dendrology, with its fact sheets for the other trees in the tables, devilwood, swamp privet, fevertree, tree of heaven and white mulberry: the leaf, fruit, twig and bark of each row, sassafras’s three leaf shapes on one branch, pagoda dogwood’s crowded leaves, shagbark hickory’s large end leaflets, the coffeetree’s 3-foot leaf, devilwood’s evergreen leaves, tree of heaven’s leaflets, white mulberry’s smooth upper side and American chestnut’s hairless leaf.
- Identifying Trees: Purdue Extension (John E. Woodmansee, 2022): the two quotations, catalpa filed with the opposite trees though its leaves can come in threes, and the twice-compound leaves of Kentucky coffeetree and honeylocust.
- Leaf Key for Common Broadleaf Trees in Maryland (PDF): Maryland Department of Natural Resources (Madeline Koenig and Kerry Wixted, 2016): the key’s order, the bud at the base of a leaf stalk and none at a leaflet, even and uneven leaf bases, and leaves that vary in shape, size and color.
- Quercus: Flora of North America, with its treatments of Allegheny chinquapin, Ozark chinquapin and peachleaf willow: oak leaves lobed or unlobed with smooth or toothed edges, the red oaks’ bristles, the chinquapins’ bristle-tipped teeth, hairy undersides and spiny burs, and peachleaf willow’s long, narrow, finely toothed leaves.
- Cornus florida: NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, with its pages for Washington hawthorn, cockspur hawthorn and Carolina willow: dogwood veins arching toward the tip, the hawthorns’ toothed and lobed leaves, and Carolina willow’s toothed edge.
