"These are a few of my favorite trees..."
Oak (Quercus sp.) Any old oaks are amazing to me. The first time you realize a large oak may be over a hundred years old, the resilience and vast age of these trees will change the way you look at them forever. Oaks are renowned for their strength and longevity. Whole cultures have been built around sacred oak trees; in a similar way, whole ecosystems revolve around single huge oak trees - oaks support more species than any other tree in North America. While people are familiar with white oak (rounded lobes) and red oak (pointed lobes), there are many different varieties of oaks: bur oak, pin oak, bear oak, turkey oak, live oak, and swamp oak, just to name a few. Because of crossbreeding, it can be really difficult to tell oaks apart - as an ecology graduate once told me, "Oaks like to have a lot of sex". This is why I don't sweat the classification much. I'd rather admire an individual oak tree than try to parse out exactly what subspecies of northern conkle bur-oak it belongs to.
White Pine (Pinus strobus) A no-brainer. With its ramrod-straight, greenish trunk and soft nimbus of needles, white pines are emblems of the northern forest. There's nothing as soothing as laying on a soft bed of needles, staring up at the cornflower-blue sky as though from the bottom of a gentle ocean, watching the pine boughs wave in the breeze (until you get up and realize you're covered in slugs and pine sap). I've seen the behemoths at Hartwick Pines, but my favorite white pine stands on a rock projecting into the South Branch of the Au Sable River, towering almost a hundred feet tall, branches raised in a proud supplication. Sadly, I've noticed a lot of white pines around my town turning yellow, which may be a sign of pathogens or poor drainage; I've personally had two saplings die on me.
Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) This is a fascinating tree. They grow in shady upland forests, putting out several sprawling trunks rarely more than 15 feet tall and 10" wide, with roundish, toothy, straight-veined leaves. They get spidery yellow flowers in the fall. But the most interesting part is its name, and the meaning behind it: "Witch" in this context, means "healing" rather than "magic" (although in the old thinking, magic and healing weren't far apart). Witch hazel extract is used for everything from inflammation to digestive health to cancer, with analgesic and mucosal properties. I'd love to have one in my yard if only for its storied history, and for its strange flowering period, which provides a nice spike of color in the fall.
Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) These are the sprites of the Michigan woods - rarely seen, but always magical, strangely out-of-place. The perfectly dark green, tear-shaped leaves with characteristic curved veins grow in flat layers, like tiered tables; the summer-blooming flowers have four snow-white petals with pebbly yellow centers.
I actually saw a small dogwood growing in a waste-area between a residence and a city park here in town; unsure of the property line, I hesitated to rescue it...and of course, five days later the whole area was mowed over. My only hope is that somebody transplanted it before the brush-hog came through. That's part of the reason I try to spread as much knowledge about identifying plants and trees as I can, so that humans will re-learn how to appreciate their natural treasures and work with nature, rather than just leveling it when it looks "too weedy".
Red Osier-dogwood (Cornus sericea) I used to call these "coral bushes" for the shockingly red bark on their young branches (the whippy "osiers" coming out of the main trunk), but unfortunately the name is already taken by a tropical ornamental. Osier-dogwoods are a common sight at the edges of swamps and marshes in the upper Midwest, and provide a refreshing visual respite from the wet-dog landscape of late fall and early spring. They transplant pretty easily, and like many soggy-land species, root quickly in a little bit of tap water. I transplanted a little one in my yard, which was then chopped in half by an enterprising rabbit (wascally, indeed); on a lark I placed the chopped-off section in water, and lo and behold! I now have another red osier-dogwood to plant. Thanks, wabbit!
Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) If a Sycamore stands in the forest, can you see it? This charmingly odd tree could be called the "camouflage tree" for the mottled gray, green, and brown bark on its lower trunk, which transitions to a lovely smooth, ivory skin over the upper trunk and branches. The leaves look like maple leaves on steroids, some which can be over 12" wide, and the fruit are porous, spiky balls. They get pretty big, towering up over lawns and city streets with their characteristic pyramid shape. A colloquial name is "plane tree", for the way the leaves "plane" or waggle back and forth in the breeze.
Paper birch (Betula papyrifera) A beautiful and storied tree, the snowy, peeling trunks of paper birch are fairly rare down in the southern Lower Peninsula where I live, and becomes more frequent the further north you go. Besides being the preferred hulls for traditional Indian canoes, paper birch is also an amazing firestarter - even punky, wet logs will burn quickly and hot with a little prodding. And last but not least, you can tap them for the sap and make birch beer! If you have the patience, that is...and a large pot...and several gallons of sap.
American basswood (Tilia americana) This is the robust, red-blooded, football-and-steak-loving American version of the prim European Linden tree you sometimes see planted in suburban yards; both trees have grayish bark and dark green leaves, and carry the narrow yellow "flags" that accompany the flowers and fruits. While European linden leaves are triangular and shiny, and usually less that 3" long, basswood leaves are much larger and rougher, and the trees themselves can soar up almost 60 feet. The name "Basswood" comes from bast, a fiber taken from the inner bark; soaking the bark in water for several weeks and drying it creates a soft, long-fibered material that can be woven into clothing and other items. For me, the best part is that the "flags" and flowers can be dried and made into a tea, or just eaten as a snack. Many parts are edible!
Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) Well-known for their height, strange four-lobed leaves, and astonishing banana-yellow color in the fall, tuliptrees form part of an ancient family with magnolias (colloquially, magnolias are called "tuliptrees" while actual tuliptrees are called "yellow poplars"...I'll be using the official designations to reduce confusion). They're related to the first flowering trees to appear on earth 95 million years ago. While magnolias are smallish and spreading, with twisty limbs, tuliptrees grow ramrod-straight and can soar to nearly 50 feet before putting out any side limbs, then continue growing for another 50 feet. Some specimens in Appalachia tower to 200 feet. Their light, strong, yellowish wood and disciplined growth make them highly-prized for lumber; consequently behemothic specimens rarer than they used to be. Thankfully tuliptrees grow fast enough to replace cut stands within a human lifetime, unlike oak or hickory. I'd love to have one in my shady backyard: watching it shoot up through a gap in the canopy like a blazing yellow torch would be extremely satisfying.
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