Identifying Conifers: Other Conifers with Needles

So, last time we talked about the three most common types of conifers with needles.  You will see these trees all over the place.  But what about some other kinds of conifers with needles?

Larch trees are one of my favorite kinds of needly plants.  Larch trees are usually found in wet, swampy areas.  Here are some that we saw on a trip to the bog:

Larch needles come in bunches of 15-20!  They look like poofs of needles.

A larch tree next to some bog irises.

Larch needles are usually very soft, especially when they’re young.  So, I love running the branches through my hands.  It’s like petting a chinchilla (kind of).  Interestingly, larches are actually deciduous trees.  Their needles turn yellow and fall off in the fall.

True Cedar Trees, such as the Cedars of Lebanon, can look similar to larches because they both have poofs of 15-20 needles.  However, true cedars are not native to North America, so if you see a tree in the wild with poofs of needles, it’s probably a larch, not a cedar.  We have a Cedar of Lebanon at the plantations:

The tall tree right in the center of this picture is the Cedar of Lebanon.  I think it looks like one of Bob Ross's "Happy Trees."

See how its needles come in bunches like the larch?

Cedar trees tend to make large cones whose scales break away.  You will rarely find a whole cedar cone on the ground.  (Larch cones don’t do this: their cones tend to stay whole.)

A single scale from a Cedar of Lebanon cone.

The same scale in profile.  You can see how thin and papery it is.

 Note: when people talk about cedar wood, they are NOT talking about wood from a true cedar tree.  I’ll talk more about where cedar wood comes from in another post.

Yew trees are beautiful trees that can live to be very old!  They also have flat needles, like a pine.  However, they have a very distinctive shape.  Their branches tend to arch upwards.

Two yew trees.

See their branches?  Very distinctive.

Yews have a beautiful distinctive red bark that tends to be a little papery.

  

 Some yews have needles that radiate out at all angles from the twig.

 Yews also have a beautiful red "berry" that is not actually a berry.  It's called an aril.  This is a highly modified cone scale that covers the actual seed almost all the way.  Below are the exposed seeds as well as the arils.

Picture from wikipedia.

Hemlock trees are beautiful trees found commonly in gardens and in forests here in New York State.  They make great hedges.  We have a hemlock hedge here at the Plantations:

 Hemlocks have needles that lay relatively flat on either side of the twig.  But be careful: some yews have needles that lay flat like this as well.  Conversely, some hemlocks have needles that radiate out from the stem.

 One sure way to tell the difference between a yew and a hemlock is by its cones.  Yews have red arils, while hemlocks have cute little cones with papery scales:

Lastly:
Redwood trees or Sequoia trees: Two types of redwood trees have needles.  One is the California Redwood, and one is the Dawn Redwood.  California Redwoods are the super, super tall trees.  These are the tallest species of tree in the world.

Picture from wikipedia.

Metasequoias, or Dawn Redwoods, are a very old species of tree that used to be found all over the northern hemisphere.  It was recently rediscovered in China (about 50 years ago).  The Plantations has two huge ones right by the parking lot:

Dawn Redwoods don't strictly have single "needles." Each one of the fronds coming off of the twig is actually one leaf.  (Usually, each needle is considered one leaf.)  You can see that the leaves are flat, kind of like hemlocks, but they droop down.  California Redwoods have similar leaf structure.

 Both Dawn Redwoods and California Redwoods have this beautiful, papery red bark that kind of looks shredded:

California Redwoods have the coolest cones.  Their scales look like little lips!

Lips!

So, those are some other trees with needles.  I hope you'll look more closely at the conifers you encounter now!  I sure do.  I appreciate their beauty much more now.  Next post I'll talk about some conifers that don't look "needly," but instead look "scaly."