Use Needles to Identify Common North American Coniferous Trees

Identification Basics

To figure out what kind of tree you are trying to identify, take a look at the following groups of trees. How a tree's needle is arranged on a twig is of major importance in matching them with the correct arrangement of needles.

Use the following images for illustration. Some needles are fastened in bundles attached to the twig, some are attached as whorls to and around the twig, and some are ​​singly attached around the twig.

Trees With Clusters or Bundles of Needles

Leaf clusters or bundles—botanically called fascicles in pine—are present on both pine and larch twigs. The number of adult needles per fascicle is important for the identification of these coniferous species, especially the pines.

Most pine species have fascicles of 2 to 5 needles and are evergreen. Most larches have multiple clusters of needles in whorls. If your trees have clusters or bundles or fascicles of needles, they will probably be either pines or larches.

Trees With Single Needles

There are many coniferous trees that have single needles directly and singly attached to the twig. These attachments can be in the form of wooden "pegs" (spruce), can be in the form of "direct" cups (fir) and in the form of leaf stalks called petioles (bald cypress, hemlock, and Douglas fir).

If your trees have single needles directly and singly attached to the twig, they will probably be spruces, firs, cypress or hemlocks. Read on for more specific identification tips.

Identifying Common North American Conifers

Bald Cypress

This tree looks like a needled evergreen in summer, but is deciduous and loses needles in winter, hence the name. Leaves are "narrow, flat, alternate, spiral around the stem, and do not have any banding." Foliage turns reddish-brown in fall.

Cedar

There are various types of cedars, but all have flattened sprays of scale-like leaves that grow on or around the twigs. The leaves are intersect with each other (known as "decussate"), less than a half-inch in length, and can be prickly in some species.

Douglas Fir

Native to coastal areas of North America, these firs have needles that are upturned and not whorled. Needles are "singly wrapped around the twig and between .75 to 1.25 inches long with a white line underneath." They are deciduous, falling off in winter, and not prickly.

Hemlock

The needles have two white "racing stripes" on the underside. They're attached singly to the twig, giving the leaf a flat look. Each needle attaches to the twig with a tiny stem, so remember, "Hems have stems."

Larch

Larches have buds with clusters of soft, flat needles. They're also deciduous, losing needles in winter after first turning golden yellow. The leaves grow in tufts, also known as "spur shoots," off branches, with each tuft reaching two inches in length and having up to 30 needles per tuft.

Pine

As mentioned before, pine needles occur in fascicles of 2, 3, or 5 per bundle. In hard pines, the base of the bundle is wrapped in a paper-like substance that lasts for the fascicle's life. In soft pines, this wrapping is lost during the fascicle's first growing season.

Spruce

Spruce stand out because its needles grow out of "sterigmata," or little projections on the stem that are best seen closest to the tree's trunk. These grow singly, not in clumps. Spruce also have a four-sided needle.