Winter identification: telling native trees apart by bark, buds and twigs

A leafless tree is named in the order you meet it: bark at eye level, then a twig and its buds, then whatever it still holds from last season. Bark sorts trees into a few kinds, from the long curling plates of a shagbark hickory to smooth, fluted gray. A twig settles most of the rest: its buds sit in pairs or singly, its tip carries one bud or a cluster, and a knife shows whether its pith is solid or chambered. Leaves, catkins, pods and fruit that hang on confirm a name, but their absence proves nothing.

Bark first

Bark is the sign you can read from the path. Shagbark hickory breaks into long plates that curl away from the trunk. Hop hornbeam has shreddy bark, and American persimmon breaks into small blocks like charcoal briquettes. Common hackberry grows corky warts.

American hornbeam stays smooth and slate gray, fluted like a flexed muscle, and beech stays smooth for life. Sweet birch is dark and tight like a cherry, ringed with lenticels, and never peels. Old black gum trunks turn blocky, like alligator hide.

Bark changes with age. A young shagbark hickory is smooth and gray, and an old tree’s branches carry the young bark of its kind. Very old oaks, hickories and gums lose their sharp ridges. That balding bark is one of the signs of what old growth looks like.

Opposite or alternate

A twig tells you more than most people expect:

“Most people do not realize this, but twigs are more distinctive than leaves.” (Virginia Tech Dendrology, Basics of Tree ID: Twig)

A bud forms where each leaf joined the twig, so the buds keep the leaves’ pattern. One bud at a node is alternate, two facing each other are opposite, and three or more make a whorl. Opposite trees are few. Dendrology classes teach them as MADCapHorse: maples, ashes, dogwoods, the honeysuckle family and horse chestnut. Among the trees we grow, flowering dogwood and blue ash are opposite, and so are our maples, buckeyes, viburnums and elderberries.

The shortcut fails in four ways:

• Missing twigs. A broken branch can make an opposite tree look alternate, so check several twigs.
• Crowded buds. Some alternate buds sit so close together that they look like pairs.
• An alternate dogwood. Pagoda dogwood is the one native dogwood with alternate leaves, and so alternate buds.
• A whorl. Northern catalpa sets three leaf scars and three buds at each node.

A New York State Parks guide to winter trees says every deciduous tree outside the mnemonic is alternate except tamarack. Catalpa is a second exception. Pagoda dogwood and tamarack are in our shop. We do not sell horse chestnut.

End buds, bud scales and leaf scars

Then look at the tip. A true end bud is larger than the side buds and points straight ahead, and shagbark hickory’s buds are large and stout. Some twigs have none, and the last side bud stands in beside a small scar where the tip fell away, as on American basswood. Oaks end each twig in a cluster of side buds crowded at the tip. A red oak’s twigs also carry tiny first-year acorns through winter, one of the differences between red oaks and white oaks.

Most buds wear scales, overlapping like shingles or meeting edge to edge in a pair. Witch hazel has naked buds, with no scales and only a pair of miniature leaves. Eastern redbud sets small flower buds on old twigs, branches and even the trunk. Below each side bud is a leaf scar, and on a black walnut it looks like a monkey’s face, with bundle scars for eyes and mouth.

Cut the twig and smell it

A pocketknife shows the pith, the soft core of the twig. Slice a twig lengthwise and most piths are plain and solid. Black gum’s pith is solid but crossed by thin walls, and black walnut’s is chambered, with walls across a hollow core. Cut across instead of lengthwise, an oak twig shows a star-shaped pith.

Snap or scratch a twig and some trees name themselves by smell. Sweet birch smells of wintergreen. Sassafras has green twigs with a spicy smell, and spicebush is called wild allspice for the scent of its crushed twigs.

What hangs on through winter

Last, look at what the tree still holds:

• Catkins. Hop hornbeam keeps its male catkins all winter, and American hazelnut opens its catkins in late winter or early spring.
• Pods. Eastern redbud keeps some flat pods all winter, northern catalpa its long pods until they split in spring, and Kentucky coffeetree its thick pods until late winter.
• Fruit. Common hackberry keeps its fruit into March, and American persimmon drops its fruit from September to late winter. A black walnut leaves husks on the ground beneath it.

Oaks keep many dead leaves into winter, most of all on young trees and on the lower branches of old ones, a habit called marcescence. Young beech does the same, and witch hazel flowers into December among its last leaves.

Only female persimmons fruit, and only female coffeetrees carry pods. What hangs on is a check rather than a test:

“The presence of fruit can help you identify or confirm your identification, but the absence does not disprove it.” (New York State Parks, Bark, Buds and Beyond: A Guide to Identifying Winter Trees)

Winter signs of the trees we grow

The table gathers these signs for thirteen of our trees and our oaks. A blank means no source records a sign there, not that the tree lacks one.

Where to start

Photograph the bark, a twig and anything that hangs on, and check them at home against the table. Take twigs from several branches, and carry a knife for the pith. The same dormant season, from leaf drop to bud swell, is when saplings are planted. Blue Whale Trees grows every tree in the table from seed:

• Uncommon yard trees: both hornbeams, black gum, catalpa, coffeetree, hackberry, redbud, sassafras and sweet birch.
• Nut and fruit trees: persimmon, black walnut and shagbark hickory.
• Native shrubs: witch hazel.
• Rare and uncommon oaks and specimen lines: the oaks.

Common questions

Can you identify a tree by its bark alone?

Often, when the bark is as distinct as shagbark hickory’s curling plates or American hornbeam’s fluted gray. Bark changes with age, so check a twig before settling on a name.

How do you identify an oak tree in winter?

Oaks end each twig in a cluster of buds, and many hold dead leaves through winter, most on young trees. A red oak also carries tiny first-year acorns on its twigs.

What tree has bark that looks like alligator skin?

Old black gum trunks turn blocky like alligator hide, and American persimmon breaks into small blocks like charcoal briquettes. Black gum also has short curved spur shoots on its twigs.

What tree smells like wintergreen when you break a twig?

Sweet birch, also called black birch: a snapped twig smells of wintergreen, and the tree was once the only source of oil of wintergreen. Sassafras and spicebush twigs smell spicy instead.

Sources

• Basics of Tree ID: Twig: Virginia Tech Dendrology: twigs as more distinctive than leaves, the opposite trees remembered as MADCapHorse, catalpa’s three leaf scars and buds at each node, the oaks’ multiple end buds, and the walnut’s stout twig, monkey-face leaf scars and chambered pith.
• Basics of Tree ID: Bark: Virginia Tech Dendrology: bark that grows rougher with age, the young bark on an old tree’s branches, beech smooth for life, shagbark hickory smooth and gray when young and shredding in long strips later, and persimmon’s blocks like charcoal briquettes.
• Twig features useful in identification: Ohio Plants, Ohio State University (Bob Klips): buds forming where the leaves join, alternate, opposite, whorled and sub-opposite buds, true and false end buds and the tip scar on basswood, the oaks’ end buds as crowded side buds, shingled and paired bud scales, witch hazel’s naked buds, and pith cut lengthwise, plain, crossed by walls or chambered as in black walnut.
• Mind Your B’s to Identify Winter Trees: University of New Hampshire Extension (Emma Tutein, 2018): bark that differs with age, the viburnums and elderberry among the opposite plants, shagbark hickory’s large, stout bud, black birch’s wintergreen twig, and young beech holding its leaves.
• Bark, Buds and Beyond: A Guide to Identifying Winter Trees: New York State Parks (Angelina Weibel, 2025): checking several branches because branches break, tamarack given as the only exception to alternate branching outside the mnemonic, the walnut’s monkey-face leaf scars and husks under the tree, and fruit as confirmation rather than proof.
• Tree fact sheets: Virginia Tech Dendrology, the sheets for American hornbeam, American persimmon, blackgum, black walnut, hackberry, eastern redbud, hophornbeam, Kentucky coffeetree, northern catalpa, sassafras, shagbark hickory, sweet birch, witch hazel, white oak and northern red oak: the bark, twig, bud, pith and fruit lines of the table, black gum’s diaphragmed pith and spur shoots, and sassafras’s spicy green twigs.
• Eastern Redbud: USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: flowers from small buds on old twigs, branches and trunks, and pods kept after leaf fall, some through winter.
• Common Persimmon: USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: fruit falling from September to late winter, and bark broken into rectangular checkered blocks.
• Oaks: Missouri Department of Conservation field guide: the star-shaped pith of oak twigs.
• The stubborn beauty of oak leaves: marcescence explained: Illinois Extension (Emily Swihart, 2024): oaks holding their dead leaves through winter, most on young trees and on the lower branches of old ones.