Trees can be identified in winter by observing their needles, bark, branching patterns, and buds. Distinctive bark, such as the smooth gray bark of a beech or the peeling white bark of a paper birch, ...

Training one’s eye to identify trees is a fun way to connect with the world around us and can be useful for making home landscape selections. Trees are often identified using leaf shape and color, ...

Gardeners who limit their love to leaves and flowers are barking up the wrong tree. Sure, those ephemeral features are undeniably seductive, but their allure is limited to warmer months. In the ...

Most people tend to overlook tree bark as rather uninteresting, at best. It's too bad, because bark is a fascinating and often attractive plant "invention," and is actually rather complex in its ...

The smooth bark on a sycamore tree exfoliates to expose a mottled patchwork pattern of gray, brown and creamy white layers. In the lush green of summer, the bark of woody plants is barely noticeable.