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At Ecologista Verde we have proposed, on countless occasions, the realization of outdoor activities, either alone, as a couple or as a family. Walks in the woods, picnics when the good weather arrives and excursions to places we did not know are inexpensive, healthy and ecological ways to spend leisure time, as well as very entertaining, pleasant and educational.
In one of these excursions to the forest you can go further and play with your family and friends to identify the trees only by examining their leaves. It is a very fun activity that will make you learn a lot about the trees of your region in a very short time. Next, we explain how identify trees from leaves.
General tree culture
To do this, we will first of all identify the trees that are present in the region or forest in which we are going to go exploring. It is necessary to do it beforehand, since in a single country there can be up to 700 different species of them and not delimiting the circle would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. For example, in Spain there are approximately 7,000 million trees. Surely, the list of the most common trees facilitates the entertaining task. Although the most predominant tree in the Spanish territory is the holm oak, followed by some species of pine and others such as oak or beech, it will depend a lot on the region in which you live or are going to visit. Thus, in areas closer to the sea, more exotic plants will abound, such as palm trees and in other provinces further south with different climates and terrain characteristics, as is the case of the Canary archipelago, it is more common to find the Canarian Pine, the juniper or cedar.
Before leaving for the park or forest, we will learn the basics of the most predominant trees of our region. The shape they present, their size, the shape of their trunk or leaves or the characteristics of the tree itself. Prepare a Power Point presentation to watch as a family or watch, in company, one of the many instructional videos on it that you will find.
Exit to explore trees and their leaves
Once we have a basic idea of what the closest trees are like and can easily distinguish an oak from a eucalyptus, it is time to put on comfortable boots and go escape into nature. Each team member can wear one basket or similar where you will keep the leaves you find, trying to find the most original and those that no one has caught until then.
Examining tree leaves to identify them
Once you sit down to eat in the forest, or at home, gather all the leaves to start the entertaining game of guessing which is which. When examining a leaf to identify a tree, consider its shape, size, color and morphology of the rib (the "bones" of the leaves):
The morphology of a leaf can be of very different forms and it is difficult to grasp them the first time, if you are a beginner. For example, we can find it wide and flat, narrow, lobed or webbed. The shape of the leaf will also allow us to classify them into two large groups: perennial or deciduous.
- The evergreen trees They can have a flat blade (the most common), acicular (like a point needle), linear (stylish or elongated) or squaliform, that is, with scales.
- The deciduous They have leaves in a palmate shape, with tips (the typical autumn leaf that we use for Halloween decoration), oval (wider than linear ones), heart-shaped (the lower part reminds of a heart), rounded (like an apple), compound leaves and many other varieties.
Surely, once its shape is identified, we are forging an idea of what type of tree it can be, recovering the lessons learned previously. In a second, more thorough examination, we will explore whether they have fruits, how are their edges and their ribs to give us more clues.
Some leaves are easier to identify than others, so if on the first trip to the forest we cannot know which one belongs to which tree, we should not be discouraged. That we do not do it is the most normal thing. It will help a lot to create a mural at home where you can stick the leaves identified with the name of the tree below and thus build a graph that will be expanded after each excursion and that will end up making us experts in the flora of our region.
Examples of some trees and their leaves
It would be impossible to describe all of them, but many of the trees that we know have leaves that are very easy to classify. For example, the fir, that tree associated with Christmas, has needle-shaped leaves that we will identify shortly. Likewise, there are different trees whose leaves we can quickly identify if we know them correctly:
- The Holm oak, the predominant tree in the Iberian Peninsula par excellence (in fact 1 out of every 5 trees in our country is an oak) has leaves that present an easily identifiable morphology.
- The Brown, which gives us delicious fruits perfect for roasting in autumn, has a green or yellow compound leaf (as the season progresses) and you will identify it, among other things, its edges look like small fangs.
- Surely you have heard of ash tree, a very abundant tree in the province of Castilla y León, with a thin and tall trunk. Its leaves are elongated, compound and are born opposite each other.
- The Oak trees, the strong tree that lives many years, hence the popular saying, feature broad, gnarled leaves with uneven edges.
- The elm trees They are very large trees with a wide crown, their leaves are also compound, but they are born alternate, they are simple and serrated and asymmetrical at the base. In addition, they end in a very pronounced point.
Apps to identify trees by their leaves
New technologies, once again, give us a faster possibility to identify trees and know exactly if we have succeeded in our divine intent or not. We recommend the Leafsnap app, one of the most revolutionary on the market in this matter, which will tell you in a second what type of tree a leaf belongs to after having photographed it with your mobile. Its main problem is that, being developed in the United States, it includes mainly American species in its database, so it is possible that some native tree remains unidentified.
To do this, that of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) developed a similar application based on the wild trees of the Iberian Peninsula (and islands) called Arbolapp. It includes 118 tree species and is freely available from common application markets. The drawings and data that accompany it will allow you to learn a lot and very quickly about the trees in your region.
Other similar ones are Leaf and Flower, which allows you to learn from descriptions of the structure and shape, explore the differences or list characteristics of the tree's flowers, or others such as Plant Tracker. If, in addition to the leaves, you also want to identify the flowers, we recommend you try the app Like That Garden, which identifies flowers through photography and Flower Garden, which presents us with a most relaxing experience.
Discover in this other EcologíaVrerde article more about the different Applications to recognize trees and plants.
Webs to identify a tree by the type of leaf
Internet web pages also provide us with numerous options. Although the best quality that we have found are in English, there are also many in Spanish that allow you to identify the tree by filtering certain characteristics, such as Trees of the World. To do this, all you have to do is select the data that fits the sheet in front of you. If it is simple, compound, the shape it presents or the characteristics of its edges. When you reach the end of the search, you will get, not only the botanical name of the species itself, but also the peculiarities of that tree, which you will surely be very interested in knowing about.
We guarantee that, after one or two months developing this game as a family, your knowledge about the trees in your region, how they live, what fruits they bear and various curiosities, will have greatly expanded. Learning to know the flora of your region will also help the little ones to love and respect natural species, as well as to watch over them when they become adults, something that will serve as a valuable lesson for the future.
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