You can find all these trees at the entrance of the park. They are visible from the parking lot and if you go stand in the open field just to the north of the parking lot. Can you find them all?
Pine Tree
Pine needles are the easiest way to identify pine trees. Unlike other coniferous trees with needle-like leaves, pine tree needles grow in small bundles called fascicles. Each fascicle on pine trees contains two, three, or five needles
Tulip Tree
To identify tulip poplars, look for large, bright green leaves with four lobes and rounded notches
Red Oak
To identify a red oak in a landscape, look for its distinctive leaves, acorns, and deeply ridged, dark gray bark. Red oaks have dark green leaves with 9 to 11 deeply pointed lobes and toothed tips.
Dogwood
You can identify a dogwood by looking for smooth-edged leaves with veins that curve parallel to the margins (edges). Flowers may or may not feature large bracts like those of the flowering dogwood (Cornus florida).
Sweet Gum
To identify sweet gum trees, look for large star-shaped lobed green leaves that turn spectacular autumn red, yellow, and orange colors. Sweetgum tree bark looks light gray with vertical fissured ridges. Spiky gumballs are another identifying feature of sweetgum trees.
White Oak
White oak leaves are simple and arranged alternately on twigs. They are 7 to 9 lobed, 5 to 9 inches long with short petioles. The lobes are rounded without bristle tips and vary in length from leaf to leaf but are rather uniform on the same leaf.
