Southern tree identification for the Southeast US

Southern pines: count the needles, then measure

Pines are the backbone of southern forests. Pull one needle bundle (fascicle) from a branch, count the needles and lay them along a ruler, then find a cone.

• Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris): needles 6 to 12 inches long, three per bundle, pliable and drooping. Cones are 6 to 15 inches long, which NC State Extension calls the largest of any pine in eastern North America. Seedlings sit in a "grass stage" for about their first five years: a fountain of needles at ground level with almost no stem. Native from Virginia west to Texas and south to Florida, 60 to 120 feet tall.
• Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda): three needles per bundle, 6 to 10 inches long, with sheaths about 1 inch long. Cones are 3 to 6 inches, with a sharp spine on each scale, in groups of one to three. Mature bark breaks into broad, flat, scaly red-brown plates (NC State Extension).
• Slash pine (Pinus elliottii): two or three needles per bundle, 5 to 11 inches long and dark blue-green. Cones are 3 to 6 inches, light reddish-brown, single or in pairs. Native from North Carolina to Texas, most common toward Florida and the Gulf (NC State Extension).

Needle lengths overlap, so a cone settles more than a needle. A cone longer than your hand points to longleaf; a small cone with sharp prickles points to loblolly. The pine page covers pines from other regions.

The evergreen broadleaves: live oak and southern magnolia

Broadleaf trees that stay green all winter are a sign you are in the South.

• Live oak (Quercus virginiana): thick leaves 2 to 5 inches long, shiny on top and pale with gray hairs underneath, mostly with smooth edges (young shoots can show teeth). NC State Extension explains it is not a true evergreen: it keeps its leaves until new ones push them off in spring. Acorns are 3/4 to 1 inch, egg-shaped, on long stalks. The tree rarely tops 50 feet but spreads 40 to 100 feet wide, often hung with Spanish moss. It grows on the coastal plain from southeastern Virginia to Florida and west to eastern Texas.
• Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora): leathery leaves 5 to 10 inches long, glossy dark green above and pale green to rusty-brown and felted below. Fragrant, creamy white flowers 8 to 12 inches across open mostly in May and June. In fall the cone-like fruit, 3 to 5 inches long, splits to show rose-red seeds hanging on threads (NC State Extension). Native in bottomlands from North Carolina to Florida and Texas, and planted far beyond.

Turn a magnolia leaf over: the rusty, felt-like fuzz underneath is the quickest check. The live oak page separates live oak from other evergreen oaks, and the magnolia page covers the deciduous magnolias too.

Swamps, rivers and the coast

Wet ground has its own trees.

• Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum): flat needles 1/4 to 3/4 inch long that line up in one plane along slender branchlets, like a feather. It is a conifer that drops its needles in fall, branchlets and all, hence "bald." Near water, knobby conical "knees" rise from the roots. Round, wrinkled cones are 3/4 to 1 inch across; young bark peels in long reddish-brown strips; old trunks flare at the base. Native from Delaware to Florida and west to Texas (NC State Extension).
• Cabbage palm or sabal palmetto (Sabal palmetto): fan-shaped leaves about 5 feet long on 2 to 7 foot stalks, a straight trunk with no true bark, often covered in old leaf bases called "boots," and small black fruit under 1 inch in fall. It grows 12 to 35 feet tall. In North Carolina it grows wild only in Brunswick County; it becomes common southward (NC State Extension).

Black gum (tupelo) also grows in southern wet woods; see the black gum page.

The Piedmont and upland hardwoods

Away from the coast, broadleaf trees mix with the pines.

• Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua): star-shaped leaves with five to seven deep, pointed lobes, turning yellow, orange, purple and red in fall. Spiky brown fruit balls 1 to 3 inches across hang through winter. Twigs may grow two to four corky wings after their second year. It reaches 60 to 100 feet (NC State Extension).
• Oaks: the white oak group has rounded lobes, the red oak group bristle-tipped ones; the red oak vs white oak page walks through acorns and bark.
• Tuliptree, flowering dogwood and redbud: four-lobed, flat-tipped tuliptree leaves; white dogwood bracts and pink redbud flowers in spring. See the tulip tree, dogwood and redbud pages.

Never eat a berry, nut, seed or pod on the strength of a web page or an app; check with a local expert.

Using a photo in the South

In a pine stand, needles and cones are often out of reach. Pick up a fallen cone and a needle bundle from the ground and photograph them on your palm for scale. Tree Identifier names a tree from one photo of a leaf, needles, bark, flower or fruit, and its follow-up chat can answer a question such as "is this longleaf or loblolly pine?". It shows no confidence score, so check the answer against the feature in the table above. The app's Collection includes southern magnolia, live oak, baldcypress, sweetgum, cabbage palm, black gum and flowering dogwood, and the Tree Map remembers where you found each tree. Planted trees such as Bradford pear and Chinese tallow have spread into southern fields and woods; the invasive trees guide covers them. For what grows in yards and streets nationwide, see the most common trees in the US.