Which tree has red bark? Check whether it is smooth, flaky, fibrous or only on the twigs

Smooth red bark: madrone, manzanita and Tibetan cherry

Smooth bark that looks polished or satiny narrows the list to three.

Pacific madrone is the red-barked tree of the West Coast. The USDA Forest Service's Silvics of North America describes smooth reddish-orange bark on the trunk and limbs, shiny green, tough, leathery evergreen leaves, and a tree that seldom exceeds 34 m (110 ft), tall and straight on good sites but low and shrubby with several stems on poor ones. Its range runs from the east coast of Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia south to near Palomar Mountain in San Diego County. Its bark also peels in thin layers, covered on the peeling bark page.

Manzanitas are the lower, twisted relatives of the West. The University of California's IPM program describes them as evergreen ground covers and shrubs with red bark and bell-shaped flowers, with the climate zone varying by species. Many manzanita species look alike, and their flowers and young stems are needed to tell them apart.

Tibetan cherry is the red-barked tree of gardens and parks, especially in the UK. NC State describes glistening, red-brown to mahogany-like bark with horizontal lenticels, small white flowers about 0.6 inch across in late spring, and alternate, toothed leaves 2 to 4 inches long. It is native to China. The horizontal bands of lenticels are the cherry signature; see the cherry page for the other cherries.

Red only on the young twigs: coral bark maple and red-twig dogwood

If the trunk is ordinary but the young stems glow red, especially in winter, the plant is grown for its twigs.

Coral bark maple is a Japanese maple cultivar. NC State lists 'Sango-kaku' among the cultivars with coral-colored twigs and notes that some Japanese maples have colorful twigs and young branches. The leaves give it away as a maple: opposite, 2 to 5 inches long, with five to nine lobes and toothed edges, on a small tree 15 to 25 feet tall. The Japanese maple page separates it from the other small maples.

Red-twig dogwood, also called red-osier dogwood, is a shrub rather than a tree, but it is the commonest answer to "red bark in winter". NC State describes a large, multi-stemmed shrub 6 to 9 feet tall with slender, upright stems, bright red to dark blood-red, most vivid on young, vigorous growth. Its leaves are opposite and smooth-edged, and its fruit is white with a blue tinge. It is native to most of North America. The dogwood page covers the tree dogwoods.

Flaky orange-red plates: Scots pine and red pine

Two pines carry reddish bark, and the needles tell them apart.

Scots pine is the answer in the UK and on many North American properties where it was planted. The Woodland Trust describes scaly orange-brown bark, reddish toward the crown and brown toward the base, developing plates and fissures with age, and blue-green, slightly twisted needles in pairs on short side shoots. It reaches 35 m and is the only truly native pine in the UK. The bright upper trunk is the field mark: look up rather than at the base.

Red pine, also called Norway pine, is native to the Great Lakes states and eastern Canada. Natural Resources Canada describes scaly bark becoming furrowed into broad, flat, scaly plates, reddish to pinkish, with needles in bundles of two, 10 to 16 cm long, and nearly stalkless cones 4 to 7 cm long. Its range runs from southeastern Manitoba to Newfoundland. The red pine and white pine page adds the needle snap test and compares it with white and jack pine.

Thick, fibrous red-brown bark: coast redwood

A huge conifer with thick, stringy bark the color of cinnamon is a coast redwood or one of its relatives. NC State describes reddish-brown, hard, furrowed and very thick bark with scaly, fibrous ridges, cinnamon-brown inner bark, a buttressed base, and flat, stiff needles in two rows with two white bands underneath. It grows 60 to 200 feet or more, native from southwest Oregon to central California in moist, foggy coastal country. Giant sequoia in the Sierra Nevada and dawn redwood, planted in parks, also have red fibrous bark; the redwood and sequoia page tells the three apart by needles and cones.

Using a photo

A photo of red bark alone leaves several candidates open. Frame the trunk together with a branch of leaves or needles, or add a cone. Tree Identifier names a plant from one photo, and Scots pine, coast redwood, giant sequoia and Japanese maple are among the species in its Collection. It shows no confidence score or list of alternatives, so check the result against the bark and leaf columns in the table. The follow-up chat under each result can answer questions such as how Scots pine differs from red pine, and the bark identification guide covers bark that is not red.