Click to Enlarge

Leaves are rounded and heart-shaped.

Fruit is a flat, purplish brown pod with small seeds inside.

Flowers bloom bright purple in spring before the leaves come out.

Click to Enlarge

Leaves are shaped like three to six inch long green spears.

Stems are bendable and used to make wicker-work furniture and baskets.

Willows are either male or female, with flowers in hanging clusters called catkins. the female flowers produce furry, white hanging fruits.

Click to Enlarge

Leaves are big-up to eight inches across-with serrated edges or "teeth" like a saw blade.

Fruit looks like a tightly-packed, fuzzy ball the size of a golf ball.

Bark is often bright white and peels easily.

Click to Enlarge

The 1- to 2-foot long leaves are made up of 12 to 24 leaflets growing from the rachis. The leaves are compound with an even number of sharply pointed leaflets.

Fruit is a green-black husk covering a 1- to 1 1/2-inch nut inside. Careful-they smell and will stain your hands.

Walnuts usually are the first to drop leaves in fall and the last to sprout new leaves in spring.

Leaves are sharp and prickly, dark green and pleasant smelling. They stay on the tree year-round.

Fruit (actually a fleshy cone) is a small, blue, berry-shaped ball eaten by many birds.

Many people cut cedars to use as Christmas trees.

Click to Enlarge

Leaves are bright green and star- shaped with veins all coming from the base. They have finely-toothed edges.

Fruit is an unmistakable prickly ball with a stem, and it usually hurts if you step on one with bare feet.

Bark is light gray or grayish brown, and on older trees it gets thick and deep and looks a little like cork.

Click to Enlarge

Leaves are soft, fluttery and bright green on the top side and silvery gray-green underneath.

Fruit is a pair of winged seeds, also called helicopters because of the way they spiral when they fall. Bark on older trees breaks into long, thin plates.

White Oak
Post Oak
Pin Oak
Black Oak
Northern Red Oak
Click to Enlarge

Leaves are soft, fluttery and bright green on the top side and silvery gray-green underneath.

Fruit is a pair of winged seeds, also called helicopters because of the way they spiral when they fall. Bark on older trees breaks into long, thin plates.

Oak and hickory trees are the most plentiful kinds of trees found in Missouri. They make up about three-fourths of the trees growing in our forests.

There are many different kinds of oak trees in Missouri-21 different species of oak trees and at least 16 hybrids. That's a lot of oak trees.

Oaks produce acorns that look like little heads wearing caps. They vary in size and shape among species. Many animals rely on acorns for food, especially deer and squirrels.

The white oak group

(round-ended leaves, tips of lobes without bristles)

• White oak
• Post oak
• Bur oak
• Swamp white oak
• Chinkapin oak
• Swamp chestnut oak
• Overcup oak
• Dwarf chestnut oak, (also called dwarf chinkapin, is on the list of Missouri Species of Conservation Concern.)

The red oak group

(most with sharp-ended leaves with bristles at the tips of lobes)

• Northern red oak
• Shumard oak
• Black oak
• Blackjack oak
• Pin oak
• Scarlet oak
• Southern red oak
• Cherrybark oak
• hingle oak
• Willow oak

Three of our red oaks—northern pin oak, Nuttall oak and water oak—are on the list of Missouri Species of Conservation Concern.

Pecan
Shagbark Hickory
Click to Enlarge

True hickories have mostly five to seven leaflets arranged in a pinnately compound leaf. Pecan hickories have more than seven slender leaflets on their stalks.

Hickories produce nuts that tend to be balloon or punching-bag shaped. Many animals eat hickory nuts, and for people, pecans are a favorite.

The pecan hickory group

• Pecan
• Bitternut hickory
• Water hickory
• The true hickory group
• Shagbark hickory
• Shellbark hickory
• Mockernut hickory
• Black hickory
• Sand hickory
• Pignut hickory

Materials: Leaves, clean cotton fabric or a T-shirt, acrylic or fabric paints, paintbrush, cardboard or tin foil, wax paper, paper or newspaper.

• Cover area with paper or newspaper. Smooth out fabric or shirt on work surface, placing cardboard or tin foil inside shirt to prevent the paint from soaking through to the back.
• Brush a thin coat of paint on the back of the leaves. Try different kinds and sizes of leaves and different colors.
• Test print the leaves on a fabric scrap or on the newspaper by gently placing them paint side down then pressing them with a piece of waxed paper. Try more or less paint to get a different look. When printing on a T-shirt try a grouping of leaves, or a pattern. On fabric, you can go wild with your design. When the paint is dry you can make a pillow, quilt or wall hanging.

Note: Acrylic paint is permanent when dry. Remove any smudges while the paint is still wet or try rubbing alcohol. Washing the T-shirt inside out will keep your prints from fading.

Click to Enlarge

In the summer, leaves usually are the most obvious part of a plant or tree. A tree without leaves would be like a fish without gills-there would be no way for the tree to "breathe."

Transpiration comes from a Latin word (spirare) that means to breathe. People breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Tiny openings, called stomata, on the undersides of their leaves and stems work like intake and exhaust pipes.

Photosynthesis is how trees and other green plants use light to make food for themselves. The green in leaves is chlorophyll. It works like a converter to change light energy into sugars that the trees need to grow. The oxygen released by a tree comes from this process. Without photosynthesis, we would have no air to breathe.