Tree identification in Canada, region by region

Atlantic Canada and the boreal forest

Five trees recur in the Atlantic provinces and the boreal forest; NRCan maps black spruce as transcontinental, and white spruce, tamarack and white birch across Canada. Learn these first:

• Balsam fir (Abies balsamea): flat needles 15 to 25 mm (about 3/4 in) long with rounded or notched tips, shiny dark green above with white lines of dots below and a strong smell when crushed. Young bark is smooth with raised resin blisters, and the 4 to 10 cm cones stand upright, then fall apart on the branch. NRCan gives its range as the northern forests of central and eastern Canada.
• Black spruce (Picea mariana): short needles, 8 to 15 mm, dull greyish-green, on hairy twigs. Its nearly round cones often cluster near the top of the tree and can stay on for up to 30 years (NRCan). A tree of wet, poorly drained ground in the south and moist organic soils in the north.
• White spruce (Picea glauca): needles 15 to 22 mm, stiff, with an "unpleasantly pungent" smell when crushed, on hairless twigs; slender cones 3 to 6 cm with smooth, rounded scale edges. It grows throughout Canada except the Pacific coast.
• Tamarack (Larix laricina): soft needles in tufts of 15 to 60 that turn yellow and drop every autumn. It grows in bogs and muskeg across Canada; see the tamarack profile for how to tell it from planted European and Japanese larch.
• White birch (Betula papyrifera), also called paper birch: bark that turns creamy white and peels in large sheets, and double-toothed leaves 5 to 10 cm long. It grows across Canada.

In the Maritimes, add red spruce (Picea rubens), Nova Scotia's tree: shiny yellowish-green needles 10 to 16 mm long that curve forward along hairy twigs, and chocolate-brown cones 3 to 5 cm long. NRCan places it in the Maritime provinces, uncommon in south-central Ontario and in Quebec north of the St. Lawrence.

Great Lakes–St. Lawrence: southern Ontario and Quebec

In southern Ontario and Quebec, broadleaf trees join the conifers. These are the ones most worth learning:

• Sugar maple (Acer saccharum): leaves 8 to 20 cm, usually 5 lobes with a nearly square central lobe and rounded notches, wider than long; paired winged seeds; grey bark in long, firm ridges that curl outward along one side (NRCan). NRCan gives its range as the Maritimes, southern Ontario and Quebec. To separate it from red maple, use red maple vs sugar maple.
• Yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis), Quebec's tree: bark in thin, papery shreds that curl at the ends, shiny reddish-brown when young, then dull yellow to bronze; oval leaves 8 to 11 cm with 9 or more straight veins per side (NRCan). It grows on rich, moist soils with beech, sugar maple, eastern hemlock and white pine. The birch guide compares it with white birch.
• Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), Ontario's tree: soft, bluish-green needles in bundles of five, 5 to 15 cm long, and hanging cylindrical cones 8 to 20 cm long.
• Red oak (Quercus rubra), Prince Edward Island's tree: leaves 10 to 20 cm with 7 to 9 lobes, the larger lobes ending in bristle-tipped teeth, and acorns 12 to 25 mm in a shallow, saucer-shaped cup.

Prairies and aspen parkland

In the aspen parkland and the river valleys of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, learn these:

• Trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides), also called quaking aspen: nearly round leaves 3 to 7 cm on a flattened stalk usually longer than the blade; smooth, pale green to nearly white bark (NRCan). It grows throughout Canada's forested areas and often forms pure stands. The poplar guide covers its relatives.
• Balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera): leaves 7 to 12 cm with a long, drawn-out tip, silvery green beneath and often spotted with brownish resin; very resinous, fragrant end buds up to 25 mm long. A tree of river valleys and moist low ground, often planted for shelterbelts and windbreaks.
• Manitoba maple (Acer negundo), also called box-elder: the maple with compound leaves, 3 to 9 leaflets, and paired seeds hanging in drooping clusters. It grows on lakeshores, stream banks and disturbed sites.
• Bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa): leaves 15 to 30 cm, often with two deep notches near the middle, and an acorn cup with a fringe of long-pointed scales enclosing half or more of the nut. NRCan's range runs from southern Saskatchewan east to New Brunswick, including grasslands.

White spruce is Manitoba's tree and white birch Saskatchewan's (both described above). In western Alberta, lodgepole pine, Alberta's tree, takes over (see the next section).

British Columbia: coast and interior

On the coast:

• Western redcedar (Thuja plicata), BC's tree: tiny scale leaves 1 to 2 mm long, shiny yellowish-green; reddish-brown bark that shreds into narrow ridges; and a trunk that flares and buttresses at the base. NRCan gives up to 60 m (200 ft) tall and about 800 years (factsheet).
• Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii): flat needles 2 to 3 cm with a slight apple smell when crushed, and hanging cones 6 to 9 cm with three-pronged bracts longer than the scales, the single best clue. The coastal variety grows on Vancouver Island and the Pacific coast from central BC south.

In the interior:

• Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta): two twisted, stiff needles per bundle, 3 to 7 cm long; cones 3 to 6 cm, often held closed by resin for 10 to 20 years until fire or strong sun opens them. It grows from the Yukon through interior BC into western Alberta. Our pine guide covers bundle counts.
• Western larch (Larix occidentalis): soft needle tufts that drop in autumn, cones 3 to 5 cm with pointed bracts sticking out; southeastern BC into Alberta.
• Subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), Yukon's tree: needles 25 to 40 mm curving upward, upright barrel-shaped cones 4 to 10 cm, and a narrow crown ending in a spire. It grows in central BC, western Alberta and north into the Yukon, at 600 to 2000 m in the south of its range.

Official provincial and territorial trees

Checked against each province's and territory's page in Canadian Heritage's Provincial and territorial symbols on 21 October 2026. Canada's own emblem is the maple genus: the 1996 proclamation designates "the maple tree (genus acer)" and notes ten species native to Canada.

A few dates from the same pages: Ontario adopted the eastern white pine on May 1, 1984; the tamarack replaced the jack pine as the Northwest Territories' tree in 1999; and the Yukon selected the subalpine fir in 2001. Newfoundland and Labrador's page notes that black spruce, designated in 1993, is the most abundant tree in Labrador and appears on the Labrador flag.

Field guides and apps for Canadian trees

Trees in Canada by John Laird Farrar is the standard field guide. The Government of Canada publications record lists it as published by Natural Resources Canada's Canadian Forest Service with Fitzhenry & Whiteside (1995, reprinted 2017): 502 pages, nearly 600 colour photographs, about 1,600 drawings, 136 range maps and maps of forest regions and hardiness zones. It is also published in French as Les arbres du Canada.

Online, NRCan's factsheets are free and bilingual, and every species above has one. Use them to confirm a name and to check its Canadian range.

For a quick first answer in the field, Tree Identifier names a tree from one photo of a leaf, needle spray, cone or the bark, with a follow-up chat for questions such as "is this white or black spruce?". Its Tree Map keeps each located find, which helps if you want to come back to a tamarack in October or a sugar maple in spring.