Know your leaves
Thirty-four trees and vines you’ll meet on a fall drive, and how to tell them apart from a single leaf.
Leaf shape
Fall color
Showing all 34
- Sugar mapleAcer saccharum
- Bigtooth mapleAcer grandidentatum
- Red mapleAcer rubrum
- Norway mapleAcer platanoides
- Silver mapleAcer saccharinum
- Bigleaf mapleAcer macrophyllum
- Vine mapleAcer circinatum
- SweetgumLiquidambar styraciflua
- Northern red oakQuercus rubra
- Scarlet oakQuercus coccinea
- White oakQuercus alba
- Gambel oakQuercus gambelii
- Bur oakQuercus macrocarpa
- Tulip treeLiriodendron tulipifera
- SassafrasSassafras albidum
- GinkgoGinkgo biloba
- Quaking aspenPopulus tremuloides
- Paper birchBetula papyrifera
- American beechFagus grandifolia
- Black gumNyssa sylvatica
- SourwoodOxydendrum arboreum
- Flowering dogwoodCornus florida
- Eastern cottonwoodPopulus deltoides
- Narrowleaf cottonwoodPopulus angustifolia
- WillowSalix species
- Black hawthornCrataegus douglasii
- White ashFraxinus americana
- Shagbark hickoryCarya ovata
- Staghorn sumacRhus typhina
- Poison sumacToxicodendron vernix
- Tamarack and larchLarix laricina, Larix occidentalis
- Bald cypressTaxodium distichum
- Virginia creeperParthenocissus quinquefolia
- Poison ivyToxicodendron radicans
Three questions that narrow it down
1
Pairs or not?
Look where the leaves attach to the twig. If they grow in pairs straight across from each other, it’s almost always a maple, ash, dogwood, or horse chestnut. Remember “MAD Horse.”
2
One blade or many?
Some “leaves” are really a stem lined with leaflets, like ash, hickory, and sumac. A true leaf has a bud where it meets the twig. A leaflet doesn’t.
3
Lobes and teeth?
Deep lobes, smooth edges, fine teeth, or a few big teeth each point to different trees. Run a finger along the edge to feel the difference.
Careful with the prettiest red vine
Poison ivy turns brilliant red and orange in fall, and its rash-causing oil stays active all year. Learn it before you reach into a colorful thicket for a photo.
How to spot poison ivyLearn more about fall leaves
- Why leaves change colorPigments, timing, and the weather behind a great year
- When do leaves fall?Timing by region and by tree
- Why evergreens stay greenAnd the few conifers that do turn
- Why oaks and beeches keep their leavesThe dead leaves that hang on all winter
- Why aspen groves turn at onceWhole hillsides of cloned trees
- Why ginkgo drops its leaves at onceA golden carpet overnight
- Why poison ivy changes colorAnd why it’s still poisonous in fall
- What’s happening to ash treesThe emerald ash borer and white ash
- How to preserve and display fall leavesPressing, wax paper, and glycerin