National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America

Been looking for a book that contains in-depth leaves, bark, and tree identification. This book has it ALL! Since so many trees have similar leaves. This book breaks it down by categories of Needle, Oval, Simple, and Broad leaf categories. Has beautiful colored pictures of bark, leaf, and trees. It also gives zone identification of a areas trees are commonly native to the specific areas. Contains not only trees but shrubs, fruit, and flower identification. Including the types of nuts, acorns, blooms associated with each category. Was able to identify a tree I had no idea what it was. RED ASH ! Also explains if it is a hardwood, softwood and what the wood is commonly used for such as furniture, pulp, etc. AWESOME book! Highly, Highly recommend!

Comprehensive for a beginner. The quality of the book is outstanding, and the photographs are very helpful with most species having a photograph that captures the entire tree, and close ups of the leaves, bark, and fruit. The visual glossary with a section on how to identify trees is a really nice addition.

I've always found plants to be confusing, and they vary much more within a species than birds. This guide makes them reasonably identifiable. It is much clearer than my (very old) Peterson Field Guide, and all the information about a species is on one page. At 700 species, it is reasonably comprehensive. And it has a key to guide you in identifying an unknown tree, which, surprisingly, not all books have. I don't see the point of a guide that covers "common" trees; what if you find one that's not in your book? Even so, occasional introduced trees, especially when chosen for landscaping, may not show up, or may be outside of their normal geographic range. It helps to cross check a species by its Latin name with the internet or a phone app for plant and tree ID, since common names vary from source to source.Case in point: I struggled to ID a group of trees on the MA shoreline, which a phone app finally named as Robinia pseudoacacia, or False Acacia. This guide, however, gives the common name Black Locust, or Yellow Locust, and maps its range in the Appalacians, no further north than central PA. Apparently they were planted there for their beauty. The latin name allowed me to connect the ID from the app with the description in this book.

A very helpful guide when it is important to know what's what.

This book uses keys as well as pictures and greatly simplifies learning to identify trees. It is also useful as a quick reference work for the family when someone wants to identify a tree. The pictures are clear and particularly attractive. It features pictures of leaves, bark, fruit, blossoms, and maps to show where trees are common and less common. One feature I particularly like was a table showing all the pines in North America with keys for identification that simplifies distinguishing one from another. Another feature quite helpful is an identification tip in the description of each tree that helps distinguish this species from other close relatives . The introduction enables a person to become acquainted with the sometimes technical terms used by biologists for shape of leaves, types of bark, fruit, and blossoms and it discusses the different types of habitats for trees and animals. There is often a brief discussion of how the tree fits in to the habitat--use by wildlife and its role in nature and also its utility to society. The book is a relatively complete guide to trees in all of North America in one volume. It is particularly well planned with color coding for different types of trees. It was created by biologists who are well known in their fields. I give the book to our children and their families and to scouts in our church as a small part of my responsibility to preserve nature and they love it.Lawrence W. Bates

My husband feels a strong need to know what kinds of trees are growing around him, and this book helps him do that.

Knockout book. It's exhaustive in scope and breadth, making it too much to be a genuine field guide (528 p, every one coated paper; thousands of photographs, reams of microscopic text; 835 g! basically both Audubon tree guides in one volume) unless you enjoy carting about a miniature encyclopedia of trees half of which have zero chance of being wherever you happen to be. But there are plenty of field guides. When you're home and want to figure out obscure, difficult, confusing or geographically restricted species, this is what you want. I'm not usually a fan of photographic guides but pictures in this book are unusually clear and concise. The obligatory phytomorphology section is here called the "Visual Glossary". There's a separate, small but nicely presented section of winter silhouettes. Included are a list of arboreta and another of references both material and digital. Exemplary is a good 20 pages on biotopes, and smaller sections on tree biology. The identification key is broken into 5 parts, distributed through the book at the beginnings of the parts to which each pertains. Each of those parts is color-coded, with terse descriptive headings on each page to help find the correct neighborhood quickly. Finally, dear to my heart, it's thoroughly indexed, every species mentioned in the book (and every family, there's a separate discussion of families) listed alphabetically by common and scientific name.

Good photographs and descriptions. A detailed overview of American trees.

I was looking for a book on tree identification in Ontario Canada. Thought this book titled "North America" should do the trick.90% of the book is south, and way south of the border.

The detail and the photos in this book are amazing... so well written and setup. It is perfect for a Horticulture students studies and just for those nature nutts that love to learn.

This book is very good for identifying trees while you are on a walk in the woods.

Yup, can verify what others are saying. Lots of photos, easy to navigate through, lots of information. I go out on hikes and can identify almost every tree I encounter, using this guide.