What a young tree looks like: first-year seedlings of oak, walnut, hickory, chestnut, maple and redbud, and the weed trees to pull

A tree seedling shows what it is within weeks, first by what it does with its seed leaves. Oaks, walnuts, hickories and chestnuts keep theirs inside the nut, so the first green is a shoot rising from a nut that stays at its base. Most maples, redbud, sycamore and the weed trees lift two seed leaves into the light, and seed leaves never look like the adult leaf. The first true leaves are often simpler than the grown tree’s, and an oak or hickory spends its first summer on a taproot longer than its stem. One check settles the commonest mix-up: a tree of heaven leaflet has a gland at its base, while a walnut leaflet is toothed all along.

Seed leaves up, or left in the nut

Seed leaves, or cotyledons, are part of the young plant inside the seed, and they feed it while its first true leaves form. A broadleaf tree has two. What a seedling does with them sorts trees into two groups, which seed manuals call epigeal and hypogeal.

In epigeal germination, the stem below the seed leaves lengthens and lifts them above the soil, where they turn green. In hypogeal germination, they stay in the shell in the soil, and their stalks lengthen to carry the shoot out. An acorn’s meat is its two seed leaves, and so is the kernel of a walnut or hickory.

Oaks, walnuts, hickories and chestnuts are all hypogeal. The nut stays at the base of the stem while it feeds the seedling, and the shoot bears a few small scales before its first true leaves open. When the Cornell botanists Rowlee and Hastings raised walnut, hickory, beech, chestnut and oak seedlings in 1898, only beech lifted its seed leaves into the air.

Silver maple is the native maple that breaks the rule. A seed that sprouts on bare soil spreads its seed leaves at the surface, but a buried one keeps them underground, against an older claim that every maple lifts them:

“When seeds are covered, germination is hypogeal, the cotyledons remaining below ground. This is contrary to evidence reported previously which states that germination of all maples is epigeal […].” (USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, Silver Maple)

The first summer, tree by tree

The two tables give each tree’s first summer as the sources record it. A blank means no source we read gives that fact. We do not grow red, sugar or silver maple, boxelder, sycamore or tulip poplar.

Seed leaves kept in the nut

Seed leaves lifted into the light

On trees that lift their seed leaves, the first true leaves follow within days to two weeks. A 1969 Forest Service guide to the seedlings of 68 southern hardwoods found that they may not look like the adult leaf. By the end of the first year, though, their shapes come close to an older tree’s. Oak seedlings of different kinds look much alike, so the first clue to the group is when the acorn sprouts.

Tree of heaven, white mulberry, Norway maple and Callery pear

Four introduced trees pass for natives, and all four lift their seed leaves.

Tree of heaven is easily taken for a walnut, a hickory or a sumac. Its leaflets are smooth-edged apart from the glandular bump near the base, while walnut, hickory and sumac leaflets are toothed all along. A crushed leaf or a broken twig smells foul, and some liken the smell to peanut butter. Its seedlings can grow 3 to 7 feet in their first year.

White mulberry crosses with red mulberry, and the hybrids come out closer to the white. A red mulberry seedling’s first leaves stay unlobed for about three months and feel rough on top. They also bleed milky sap when a leaf stalk breaks, so milky sap marks a Norway maple only among the maples.

Pines in the apple pot, and grass that is not a tree

An apple, like an oak, has two seed leaves, while a pine has more: a slash pine seedling opens 7.2 on average. A seedling with a cluster of seed leaves in a pot of apple seed is not an apple, and a cluster like that is how a pine starts. Whether an apple seedling would bear apples like its parent is the question will it come true from seed answers.

Grass comes up with a single seed leaf, and its veins run side by side. A broadleaf tree shows two seed leaves, or none above ground, and its true leaves are veined in a net. A tree that does pass for grass is longleaf pine, which spends 2 to 15 years in a grass stage, a tuft of needles at ground level while its taproot grows.

The first year in the ground or a pot

A first-year walnut, oak or sycamore wants light above all. Black walnut seedlings are intolerant of shade, sycamore seedlings die without direct light, and light is the main limit on a young northern red oak. Planted walnut seedlings also need weed control for their first two or three years. In a pot, a chestnut’s taproot wants a container much deeper than it is wide, 10 inches or more. Planting acorns, nuts and seed carries the method from collecting the seed to the first move.

Keep, move or pull a volunteer

A volunteer is a seedling that came up on its own. A native one with room to grow is worth keeping, and eastern redbud, for one, seeds itself under older trees. One in the wrong place moves best young, since the taproot of a white oak or a shagbark hickory makes an older tree hard to move.

Move it in early spring before the buds break, the better window for oaks with a taproot, as transplanting young trees explains. Dig deep enough for the whole root: a white oak’s taproot passes a foot in its first season, and a shagbark hickory’s reaches 2 to 3 feet by its third year.

Pull a weed seedling while it is small and the soil is moist, and take the whole root, since a piece left behind can sprout:

“Hand-pulling young seedlings is effective when the soil is moist, and the entire root system is removed. […] Seedlings can be easily confused with root suckers, which are nearly impossible to pull by hand.” (Penn State Extension, Tree-of-Heaven)

Pull white mulberry seedlings as soon as they appear. Invasive trees and the natives they resemble covers the grown trees and what to plant instead.

Your next step with a seedling

Every tree Blue Whale Trees sells is grown from seed, not grafted, so each seedling is genetically distinct. For your own seedlings:

• To sow a nut or seed: the seed sowing planner gives the dates to chill and sow each plant we grow.
• To keep one in a pot: a sapling in a pot covers the deep pot a taproot needs and how long a seedling can wait.
• To name one: send a photograph of the leaves, the stem and any nut at its base through the support page.

Common questions

What does an oak seedling look like?

A shoot rises from an acorn that stays at its base, with a few scales and then toothed or shallowly lobed leaves. After its first summer a white oak may stand 3 or 4 inches tall over a foot of taproot.

What does a black walnut seedling look like?

It comes up from a nut that stays in the soil, and its first leaves carry five toothed leaflets, then seven, nine and eleven. On deep, rich soil it can reach 36 inches by fall.

How do you tell tree of heaven from black walnut seedlings?

Tree of heaven leaflets have a glandular bump at the base and smooth edges elsewhere, while walnut leaflets are toothed all along. A crushed tree of heaven leaf also smells foul.

Why are there so many maple seedlings in my yard?

Red and silver maple seed ripens from April to June and can sprout as soon as it lands, so the ground beneath fills with seedlings by early summer. Their leaves come in opposite pairs.

Sources

• Silver Maple: USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, with the pages for white oak, northern red oak, black walnut, shagbark hickory, pecan, black maple, red maple, eastern redbud, sycamore, yellow-poplar, ailanthus and slash pine, and the ailanthus chapter of the 1990 volume: which seedlings keep their seed leaves underground, the quotation on silver maple’s buried seed, first-year heights and taproots, when red and silver maple seed falls and sprouts, light and weeds for young seedlings, and slash pine’s seed leaves.
• Acer L., maple: USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual, Agriculture Handbook 727 (2008), the chapters for Acer, Quercus, Cercis, Amelanchier, Liriodendron, Morus and Pyrus: epigeal germination in most maples, Norway maple among them, and in redbud, serviceberry, tulip poplar, mulberry and pear, hypogeal germination in oaks and silver maple, and the acorn’s two fleshy seed leaves.
• Identifying Juvenile Seedlings In Southern Hardwood Forests: USDA Forest Service, Research Paper SO-47 (L.C. Maisenhelder, 1969): seed leaves unlike mature leaves, first true leaves that come to resemble an older tree’s by the end of the first year, the first leaves of the hickories, pecan and red maple, opposite leaves and buds on maple seedlings, red mulberry seedlings’ rough, unlobed first leaves and milky sap, and the white oak seedling’s shallow lobes and red new leaves.
• The Seeds and Seedlings of Some Amentiferae: W.W. Rowlee and G.T. Hastings, Botanical Gazette 26 (1898): seed leaves kept in the nut by walnuts, hickories, chestnuts and oaks and lifted only by beech, the stalks that carry the shoot out, the scales below the first leaves, black walnut’s leaflet counts, the hickories’ three-leaflet first leaves and long roots, chestnut leaves shaped like the adult’s, and oak seedling leaves that are toothed and much alike.
• Effects of temporal dynamics, nut weight and nut size on growth of American chestnut, Chinese chestnut and backcross generations in a commercial nursery: C. Pinchot, S. Clark, S. Schlarbaum and colleagues, Forests 6 (2015): the average height of chestnut seedlings after one season in a fertilized, irrigated nursery bed.
• Planting American Chestnut in Pots: The American Chestnut Foundation (2025): the nut left at the base of the seedling once it has fed it, and a container much deeper than it is wide, 10 inches or more, for the taproot.
• Tree-of-Heaven: Penn State Extension, with the page Callery Pear: the glandular teeth and smooth edges of tree of heaven leaflets, the odor, the native look-alikes with toothed leaflets, root fragments that sprout, the quotation on hand-pulling seedlings and root suckers, and Callery pear’s waxy, wavy-edged leaves, its spines on plants gone wild and its look-alikes with opposite leaves.
• Invasives in Your Woodland: White Mulberry: University of Maryland Extension (Andrew Kling, 2023): hybrids with red mulberry that come out closer to the white, glossy white mulberry leaves against red mulberry’s hairy undersides, and pulling seedlings as soon as they appear.
• Norway maple: Virginia Tech Dendrology, with the fact sheets for sugar maple, black maple, tree-of-heaven, black walnut, staghorn sumac, white and red mulberry, eastern redbud, downy serviceberry, American sycamore and yellow-poplar: Norway maple’s milky sap and buds, the leaf and twig signs of the other trees, and the smell of a broken tree of heaven twig.
• 3. Botany: NC State Extension, Extension Gardener Handbook: seed leaves as part of the embryo that feed the seedling while its first true leaves form, two seed leaves in apples and oaks against one in grasses, and parallel against netted veins.