Flora and Fauna of Discovery Park: Site 1: Trees

While we will certainly see a wide variety of trees on this tour, this is a great opportunity to identify several of our native trees. These are the building blocks that make our ecosystems what they are. The first one we see is the Bigleaf Maple. You probably have a pretty good idea what a maple is, but you can tell by the big leaves that have palmate venation (all the veins radiate from a single point at the base of the leaf). They also have a cool fruit! The fruit is a samaroid schizocarp; a samara is a fruit that has a wing, while a schizocarp is a fruit that splits into two when dry and ripe, and this one is both! Also note that the leaves have 5 major lobes, as opposed to our other native maple, Vine Maple, which has 7 lobes. In this area we are also fortunate to have two of our native cypress trees (Cupressaceae), the Alaskan Yellow Cedar and the Western Red Cedar. These trees are characterized by overlapping scales, rather than needles or leaves. These scales are actually the best way to tell the trees apart; the scales of the Alaskan Cedar abruptly jut outward before coming back into the next scale. On the other hand, the Western Red Cedar scales smoothly overlap to the next scale, with each individual scale being about wide as it is long. Ironically, none of these trees are actually cedars, because true cedars are in the genus Cedrus. Some trees that are particularly easy to identify are pine trees! Pine trees are characterized by bundles of needles, and pointly scales on their cones. The number of needles per a bundle can tell you the species; 2= Lodgepole pine, while 3= Ponderosa Pine. Finally, we have the flagstone tree of the PNW, the Douglas Fir. You can identify Douglas Fir from its thick, cracked bark, pointy growth tips, and cones with little 3 tipped wings peaking out from under the scales. Yet again, Douglas Fir is not a real Fir tree, because Fir trees are in the genus Abies. This only demonstrates how misleading common names can be.