"Note to self" ID mistakes of trees in parks versus wild

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Oregonbluemoon Grants Pass, OR(Zone 8a) Nov 25, 2014

Not to long ago Viburnum Valley put up a post with pics of some trees in a park in my town. Being pretty familiar with the look of most of the local conifers I suggested an ID based on the shape and general appearance of the trees. I was wrong on most of them, which to be frank surprised me. I thought that I was a better judge than that. So I started thinking about this while paying close attention to our local trees.

Here are a few of the things that stood out, some of them glaringly. Some of our trees like the spruces and redcedars as well as others have fairly open foliage in the wild. These same species in our park have dense, fairly tight foliage and even a different shape to some of them. They are also not associated with the same plants in the understory. Also the foliage itself is bigger and denser on the park specimens.

I will have to finish my thoughts on this later.

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ViburnumValley Scott County, KY(Zone 5b) Nov 25, 2014

Thank you for this post. I hope that my previous postings did not come across as offensive, as I appreciated your information and ID attempts.

I did not know for sure what these plants were when I first saw them in 2008, though I can usually identify genera such as spruce or fir or pine. Some of the others tend to run together, especially since I don't see them often.

I look forward to more on this subject. I agree with everything you've written so far, since I see in nursery production that shearing changes characteristics and makes plants hard to ID. Plants grown individually as specimens will certainly portray different appearances than they will in natural stands with common associates.

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Oregonbluemoon Grants Pass, OR(Zone 8a) Nov 26, 2014

Absolutely not VV. None of your or Resin's previous posts were felt to be negative at all. You both have much more experience than I do and I always appreciate your input.

One of the things that became glaringly obvious when I started looking around and thinking more about it was that although these trees in the park are all natives they are not necessarily native to the Grants Pass local and climate. The Engleman Spruces are a good example of this. They typically grow above 4000 ft along the higher ranges of the Cascades. We are right at 900 ft here.

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