Tree Species?

[Steve Frazier]

I got to wondering how much tree species vary in different regions of the country, and around the world as well. Just in my travels through NY, it seems the further north you go the more plentiful evergreens become.

I'm in the Hudson Valley of NY, and I think the most plentiful trees we have are different varieties of maples, closely followed by oak. Wild Cherry is probably the next most common, they grow like weeds. The Hudson Valley was at one time one of the country's biggest suppliers of apples with apple orchards everywhere so as a result there quite a number of wild apple trees that animals have seeded around the area. Ash is also quite common, though they tend to get a blight and die off before they get much more than 20 to 30 years old.

Most evergreens I see have been planted or are descendants of trees planted years ago.

How about other areas?

 

[nedly05]

Further north we have a lot of the same, some hardwoods we have are maple, oak, beech, hophormbeam,(we call it hardhack or ironwood), poplar, cherry(although not as abundant)white birch, yellow birch, apple and ash.

some softwoods we have are balsam, white pine, red pine, spruce, hemlock white cedar,and red cedar.

I'm sure I missed a bunch, but thats a good start anyway!!!

 

[Loaderman380]

The most common trees around here are the yellow pine. From what I am told most of these were planted as tree farms for future harvest. Smaller ones are used in paper mills, larger are cut for lumber. Also there are quite a few native oaks. Not like the ones up north, these are called "live oaks", don't know why. Others include cedar and of coures palms.

 

[CM1995]

In the southeast we have oak- mountain, red, white, black jack, live oak; red maple, popular, dogwood, wild cherry, mamosa sp? (nasty tree), pine - long leaf, loplolly, yellow, short needle; hickory, cedar, sweet gum, birch, magnolia, pecan and cyprus. Of course I have left out many, just some that come to mind.

 

[John C.]

The primary logged species in the Pacific Northwest includes Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Western Red Cedar, Sitka Spruce, Ponderosa Pine, White Fir and maybe Noble Fir. We do a lot of Red Alder for special pulp and furniture lumber, but it probably best known for fire wood. These are mostly done on the West side of the Cascades. The East side has a some hard woods but I've seen mostly pine.

Not a lot of use for the many other species we have here.

 

[surfer-joe]

The tree huggers wouldn't let you cut them if they did have a good use John C.

 

[JTL]

In North Idaho we log Douglas(red) Fir, White Fir, Western Larch(tamarack), Red Cedar, Lodgepole Pine and Ponderosa Pine. There is alot of Cottonwood, Aspen, and Birch that nobody can seem to find a use for. Birch makes pretty good firewood, but Aspen and Cottonwood sucks!
Jason

 

[australian pete]

we have no where as many species of trees down under as you have, at a guess i would say 98% of our (native) trees are eucalyptus, there are different kinds, EG, ironbark,turpentine, stringy bark, spotted gum, grey gum, yellow box etc.they are all hardwood,(some harder than others) we have no softwoods to speak of, any softwoods we do have are rubbish, good for nothing..

 

[RocksnRoses]

Down here there are no trees suitable for timber, we just have mallee (eucalypt), ti-tree, sheoak and a small native pine. We have a fairly low rainfall (16", 10" this year), a lot of limestone country and strong winds, so everything here has to be pretty tough to survive. All of our trees are evergreen. Mallee is very hard and excellent for firewood and the smell of mallee burning is hard too beat.

Rn'R.

 

[australian pete]

i have been to SA and have noticed that, you have bugger all trees, i live about 70 klms west of sydney at the foot of the blue mountains, i live on 46 acres and about 15 are cleared, not allowed to clear any more, local council are greenie do gooders, have already been in trouble for some unauthorised clearing when a neighbour dobbed me in,

 

[redline]

the good old ironbark is unbeatable for fencing, bloodwoods are very common in SE QLD,

hoop pine and slash pine are commonly milled for chip and pulp.

wattle is common though it is utter rubbish and even dies off after 15 yrs or so,

 

[RocksnRoses]

i have been to SA and have noticed that, you have bugger all trees, i live about 70 klms west of sydney at the foot of the blue mountains, i live on 46 acres and about 15 are cleared, not allowed to clear any more, local council are greenie do gooders, have already been in trouble for some unauthorised clearing when a neighbour dobbed me in,

I guess the low rainfall has a lot to do with the lack of large trees, but the farming land was way over cleared when the country was opened up. To retain the land, it was a Government requirement to clear a certain amount of land each year, but a lot of areas have been left very exposed. Some of the old blokes reckoned that the rainfall actually dropped when the trees were cleared. Clearing here is totally banned now, except for fencelines on properties.

Rn'R.

 

[bobcatmechanic]

black locust are the thorns on those have poison in them

 

[australian pete]

the good old ironbark is unbeatable for fencing, bloodwoods are very common in SE QLD,

hoop pine and slash pine are commonly milled for chip and pulp.

wattle is common though it is utter rubbish and even dies off after 15 yrs or so,

your right about that crap wattle, i have heaps of black wattle on my place, not allowed to clear it although mow a few now and then with a forestry mower.

 

[australian pete]

I guess the low rainfall has a lot to do with the lack of large trees, but the farming land was way over cleared when the country was opened up. To retain the land, it was a Government requirement to clear a certain amount of land each year, but a lot of areas have been left very exposed. Some of the old blokes reckoned that the rainfall actually dropped when the trees were cleared. Clearing here is totally banned now, except for fencelines on properties.

Rn'R.

clearing is banned here too. i do clearing for a living however the only clearing we do is for subdivisions, commercial and industrial developments, al that has to be ground to mulch.

 

[woodchuck2]

Further north we have a lot of the same, some hardwoods we have are maple, oak, beech, hophormbeam,(we call it hardhack or ironwood), poplar, cherry(although not as abundant)white birch, yellow birch, apple and ash.

some softwoods we have are balsam, white pine, red pine, spruce, hemlock white cedar,and red cedar.

I'm sure I missed a bunch, but thats a good start anyway!!!

Thats a good start of the most common. You will see all of these tree's at lower elevations but when you get higher up on the mountains you will find the hardwoods thin out. Typically you see Spruce, Balsom, white birch and yellow birch towards the summits. When you get lower you run into the maples, oaks and pines. At the bottom you run into everything.

 

[Construct'O]

Burr oak,red oak,pinoak.white oak,rough bark hickory,wild cherry,lenn trees,chinese elm,red elm,maple,white pine,sctoch pine.List goes on.Almost forgot pssssss! elm

Black walnut,hedge trees( good for post),black locust,honey locust of course red cedars,hackberry(sorry hackleberry)

I also have some buckeye trees,these are Iowa,not Ohio

Willow,cottonwood,ash

Then there is always brush,blackberry,gooseberry,muiltflowerose
Don't even let me get started on weeds.

As you can tell we grow trees and corn good:usa

 

[AU.CASE]

I got to wondering how much tree species vary in different regions of the country, and around the world as well. How about other areas?

Hi all,

Great thread.

My area has lots of varied trees.

* White Box - Eucalyptus albens
* Yellow Box - Eucalyptus melliodora
* Blakelys Red Gum - Eucalyptus blakelyi
* Red Stringybark - Eucalyptus machroryncha
* Red Box - Eucalyptus polyanthemus
* Red Ironbark, Mugga - Eucalyptus sideroxylon
* Long Leaved Box - Eucalyptus goniocalyx
* Long Leaved Box - Eucalyptus nortonii
* Kurrajong - Brachychiton populneum
* Rough Bark Apple
* Acacia Spp (Wattle)

The box wood is very hard and variable due to the frequent drought and occasional flush, that is the record 1,400MM // 56" of rain last year.

White Box (my favourite) is probably the hardest, a wood turner told me it was like mild steel to work when seasoned fully.

I mill the Red Stringybark, it is incredibly strong, long grained and all the buildings used to be made from it, can be nailed in the first year, after that it hardens.

The images below are.

1) White Box // Yellow Box, typically about 20M tall. Grass in the foreground is Bothriochloa macra // Native Red Grass.
2) This little guy is a Brush Tailed Possum, just out beside my office one night, they love the trees and eat Mistletoe.
3) Milling Stringybark into baulks.
4) This is a few in one area, foreground plant is Native Lomandra spp

View attachment 73122View attachment 73123View attachment 73124

 

[willie59]

Well, this is an old thread, but a good one nonetheless.

We have all manner of hardwood and softwood, with the exception of far northern species, such as Paper Birch, or far southern varieties, such as the Palm and Palmetto. Aside from those, it's a mixed bag of everything. Not far from me is the Great Smoky Mountains where over 17,000 species of plants, animals, and invertabrates have been documented.

And we have one tree species that, although it has wide coverage across the eastern United States, it only grows in certain habitat areas of that coverage area, have a good presence of them in my area. It used to be an activity of me and my dad, searching for Pawpaw trees.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawpaw

 

[stock]

Ash,Irish oak,Beech,Holly,Whitethorn, Hazel,Cherry, Sycamore,Willow, Crab apple, to mention but a few....