Treecology: 30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Trees and Forests
You can observe trees closely throughout the year and appreciate their enormous variety the difference in the shapes and designs of leaves the texture of bark and the many different types of flowers and seeds they produce You can enjoy the colors of leaves in the fall and the beautiful silhouettes many trees show during the winter And you can have fun with the activities in this book as you learn about trees forests leaves and seeds Important Note Never walk in the woods alone Ask an adult or a few friends to go along Always tell an adult where you are going and when You don’t have to visit a large wooded area to do the activities in this book You can make many discoveries simply by observing trees in your neighbor hood around your school playground or in a park xiixii
6 6 6 61 1 1 Trees are almost everywhere They are planted along streets and around playgrounds They create pleasant cool shaded areas around homes in the summer Trees provide food shelter and homes for birds and other wildlife City parks and gardens are valued for their beautiful trees and forests are enjoyed by hikers naturalists campers and bird-watchers 1 What Is a Tree
Is It a Tree or a Shrub Trees and shrubs are large plants with hard woody trunks or stems Most have leafy branches or groups of leaves Size is generally the best way to tell the differ ence Shrubs usually grow less than 15 or 20 feet tall and often spread out close to the ground A mature fully grown tree can grow tall and straight to a height well over 20 feet Most trees have a single main trunk that branches out into many smaller branches and twigs But most shrubs have several woody stems rising right from the ground and then dividing into thinner branches Your school house apartment or nearby grocery store parking lot prob ably has several shrubs planted around it Here are some examples of shrubs e flowering lilac e blueberry bushes e azaleas e honeysuckle bushes e flowering forsythia e others hawthorn trees witch hazels and sumacs can often grow more than 15 feet tall so they are described in field guides as small trees or large shrubs A single plant family can include both trees and shrubs and even small woodland wildflowers It can be confusing to tell a tree from a shrub Some trees don’t grow tall because they are stunted by insect damage or poor growing conditions such as drought And many trees are pruned and trimmed so that they remain small Even though they could left This large sil ver maple planted as a shade tree is about 40 feet tall right Hawthorns are often described as shrubs or small trees because they usually grow less than 20 feet tall This downy haw thorn is in full bloom and about 12 feet tall 22
become much taller they are kept to the size of a shrub less than 20 feet tall Here are a few examples e Apple trees can grow more than 20 feet tall but in orchards they are usu ally pruned and trimmed to keep them smaller to make it easy to harvest ripe apples from them e Rhododendrons can grow well over 20 feet high in the wild but when planted in front of houses or public buildings they are kept trimmed to stay small e Hemlock trees growing naturally in the wild can grow 60 to 70 feet tall with some huge specimens reaching more than 100 feet But they are sometimes planted in rows near a building and trimmed and pruned to form a low hedge e A balsam fir can grow to be a large tree usually 50 to 60 feet tall But on a tree farm where Christmas trees are raised and grown they are trimmed so they can fit inside a house for the holidays Balsam firs in poor growing conditions may only grow a few feet tall On the coast of Newfoundland Canada balsam firs are stunted and windblown Even though they are mature trees they can’t grow very tall Groups of these stunted low trees are called tuckamore The tuckamore firs shown here are only about four feet tall Rhododendrons are often used for landscaping in front of homes and public build ings This rhody is kept pruned to maintain its shape and size Several different species and cultivated varieties are grown and used for planting 33
