3 minute read
See The Forest For The Trees
Andi Sedlacek
Andi Sedlacek is a publications supervisor in the DNR's Office of Communications.
Nearly half of Wisconsin is covered with trees, providing wildlife habitat, protecting against soil erosion, cleaning the air, and providing shade and windbreaks. Get to know four of the state’s most common tree species.
Sugar Maple
You can find Wisconsin's state tree throughout the state. The leaves create the brilliant yellow, orange and red colors we love in fall. This iconic American tree can grow 80-100 feet tall. The bark on young trees is light gray to brown and somewhat smooth. Older trees have gray to almost black bark with long, irregular plates or scales that often loosen on the sides.
Sap from sugar maples is used to make maple syrup, making Wisconsin the fourth-largest producer of maple syrup in the U.S.
Paper Birch
Also called white or canoe birch, this is one of Wisconsin’s most identifiable trees. The chalky white, often peeling bark of mature trees is quite striking, especially when a tree reaches 65-70 feet tall, as paper birches can. Bark of young trees is reddish-brown. Leaves can be oval to triangular with a pointed end. In spring and summer, they are dark green on top and yellowish-green on the bottom; in the fall, they turn golden yellow. The fruit of a paper birch is called a catkin and is about 1 inch long with tiny, winged seeds that drop throughout fall and into winter.
Balsam Fir
This evergreen tree is primarily found in the northern half of Wisconsin, but during the winter holidays, you’ll see it throughout the state as a common type of holiday tree. It's also used for pulpwood to make paper.
In the forest, balsam firs can grow 40-60 feet tall. They have a narrow shape with orderly branches. Dark green needles are about an inch long with a rounded point. The bark is thin, smooth and marked by blisters filled with resin or balsam pitch. In fall, balsam firs produce purple cones about 2-4 inches long.
Northern Red Oak
Despite its name, the northern red oak grows abundantly around Wisconsin. After sugar maple and red maple, it's the state’s most common tree by volume.
Red oaks can reach 70-90 feet, growing tall and straight with gray to brown bark characterized by flat ridges. Leaves can be quite big, 5-9 inches long and 4-6 inches wide, recognizable with sharp lobes down the edges. In spring and summer, the leaves are a rich green and turn bright red and brown in fall.
Red oak acorns are rather small, usually about an inch long. They take two seasons to mature and drop, versus white oak acorns, which take one.
Wisconsin Community Tree Map
Launched in 2017, the Wisconsin Community Tree Map, an inventory of urban trees across the state, recently hit the 1 million tree mark — and counting. The database offers a compilation of urban tree inventories from more than 200 organizations, including municipalities statewide.
With information like species compositions and size distribution, it can be a powerful management, scientific, marketing and educational tool. Visit the map to see what trees are in your neighborhood at pg-cloud.com/Wisconsin.
