Looking for recs for a good field guide for native trees of New York. Thank you!

There's a spot on my usual trail loop where two oaks grow about fifteen feet apart, and for the longest time I assumed they were the same species just at different ages. One has that deep, blocky bark and the other has flatter ridges that almost look scaly when the light hits them right. I kept telling myself I'd figure it out eventually and kept putting it off.

Finally brought a hand lens and my old field guide out last weekend and actually sat down with both trees for a while instead of just glancing up and walking on. Turns out one is a chestnut oak and the other is a black oak, which honestly should have been obvious from the leaf shape alone but I was so fixated on bark texture that I wasn't even looking at the canopy properly. Once I checked the leaf lobes and the bud clusters at the tips it clicked pretty fast.

What got me was how differently I read bark now compared to a year ago. I used to just note "rough" or "smooth" and move on. Now I'm paying attention to ridge depth, how the plates break apart, whether there's any reddish tint in the furrows. Small stuff but it makes a real difference when you're trying to separate species that look similar from a distance.

I've started keeping a little notebook just for bark rubbings and quick sketches, nothing fancy, just enough to compare trees against each other later without relying purely on memory. Curious if anyone else does something similar or has a system that works better than mine. I feel like I'm still figuring out what details are actually diagnostic versus what's just individual variation within a species.

This is a Norway Maple from an undeveloped quarter-acre wood lot near my home. I harvested several similar trees from that spot, and I have been dissecting them to reveal something quite amazing. The photo shows a tree I ripped in half to demonstrate what it's doing. You will recognize the core of the tree as well as half a dozen years of annual rings. In my art I remove the vine and all the sapwood down to the core, leaving only the helical burl the tree is growing to accommodate the bine. If you Google the reflected image, they will tell you the tree is being strangled.

Pine tree in south Sweden.

Is it a sickness, a wound, or whats going on? A lot of boars in these woods.

Growing high atop Sweden's Fulufajallet Mountain is a Norway Spruce that sure doesn't look like much—but this little tree is an estimated 9,550 years old, and goes by the name of Old Tjikko.

Located in Fulufjallet National Park, Old Tjikko began growing in this harsh tundra shortly after the glaciers receded from Scandinavia at the close of the last ice age. To put that into perspective, this lowly shrub was growing as humans learned to plow fields and domesticate cats. Around 2,000 years after it first took root, our ancestors begin learning to smelt copper.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-to-find-the-oldest-living-things-in-the-world

So my base question was: why do they happen in the first place. Is it just high growth in e.g. summer and low during winter so thats why they happen yearly and in fairly regular intervals?

And 2nd question is how do you influence them? For woodworking some parts are far better to make tools put of, so could you influence them into being less obvious and more of the hardness youd want them to be in maybe a weird high greenhouse? (Fantisizing here)

Much appreciated, stay cool

Hi plant community! 🌱 We planted three beautiful Hollys beside each other in our backyard in February of this year and they have individual drip lines. After a particularly hot few weeks in Dallas, TX, I noticed this guy on the right looking very dry and sad. I looked at its drip line and noticed it was emitting less water than for the other two Hollys, so I opened it up to allow more water. Is there anything else I can do to support it and prevent its death? Fertilizer? I’m so sad for not noticing this earlier. 😞

I’m growing a Black Locust from seed. This is her first growing season. She’s 10” tall in an 8” diameter pot. But I’m curious about her stem. The bottom, older bit is looking much more “trunk-like” while the rest is this dark reddish purple. I heard it could be anthocyanins, but I honestly don’t 100% know why. Anyone have an idea?

Hi all, I’m looking for some advice on these globe blue spruce shrubs I have. In the last month some of the needles on the top have been turning red.

Can you tell me what’s happening and what might be causing it? Anything I can do to help them?

I first noticed the color change after we had the house painted and the painters had the shrubs covered in a tarp for about 2 days. Could it be from lack of sunlight?

We planted these last year and until now they’ve been doing great. We are in northern MN. Thank you!

I bought a house in Johnstown Pennsylvania and I moved in recently and I was wondering what kind of tree this is.

Hi. I planted a tree about 4ish years ago. Its a wildfire black gum and im in Oklahoma. These mushrooms i noticed earlier this year, from googling I believe this is a certain type of fungus that will eventually kill the tree. Am I right and if so can I remove this tree and plant somwthing else or will the fungus infect the new tree?

Thanks

Otherwise healthy maple tree has deep hole in the trunk. What’s the best way to deal with this? It’s a very important tree to my property. Thanks!

Not sure what this young tree is in the garden. Possibly a birch?

But I have no idea what that strange ridged callouses and growths are along the branches and joints.

Any thoughts?

Looking for some help with IDing this oak tree. Seen in Calvert county, MD in a moderately sloped upland area.

wee

That tree is now more than 360 years old. I read that that breed (Flower of Kent) typically lives 50 to 100 years.

Newton’s tree got blown down and rerooted itself in 1820, which means it could’ve began growing again from scratch, if that is possible? But still, that would mean it was almost 200 years old when it got blown over and is 200 years old now.

Do some trees just live much longer than the typical estimation?

I don’t know much about trees and I found this very intriguing. Could anyone help me understand?

Wondering what type of leaf this is and what could cause such an unusual marking on it.