What Tree Is It?

Have you ever looked at a tree and wondered what kind of tree it happened to be? Guess what we're going to show you today. We've found you a website that can help identify that tree that you keep wondering about. Now you're wondering what this service might cost. Well, it's not ten dollars. It's not five dollars. It's absolutely free!

The first thing you'll see on the What Tree Is It website is an image of a tree and three more images on the right. The three images are the key here. These images are where we'll find out about our tree.

Let's look at the first link, "Identify by Leaf". Clicking on it takes us to a list of more images that show several different kinds of leaves. Choose which leaf the leaf from your own tree looks the most similar to. Clicking on that brings us to another list, and then another, narrowing it down until we've found our tree!

My tree turned out to be an Ohio Buckeye. On this last page we see the name of our tree, a description, and some pictures of different aspects of the tree. The Ohio Buckeye page shows pictures of the tree, its flowers, and its twigs and buds. This should get you a start on the information you wanted about your tree.

The next link on the first page says, "Identify by Fruit," and the last one is "Identify by Name." Identify by Fruit is similar to the first link. We narrow the pictures of the fruit down until we have our tree.

Identify by Name is a bit different. Use this one if you already know the name, but want a little more information. Clicking it brings us to links to the common name and the scientific name. From there it's pretty easy to find the information for your tree.

That's all there is to it with this handy little tree guide that is brought to us by the Ohio Public Library Information Network. To you who are already pretty knowledgeable about trees and nature, this site may seem a little lacking, but you probably already have your own print field guides anyway. The "What Tree Is It?" site is for those of us who are still learning and want a good start in our knowledge of trees. This site does this very well.

So if you want to find out about a few trees to get you started, go to "What Tree Is It." From there you'll be free to search the web for even more information about your subject. And who knows? Maybe this will lead you to a love of trees that will increase your knowledge beyond your imagination. Go and take a look.

What Tree Is It?


We are still looking for more online field guides every day, especially those for outside of North America. If you know of a good site with information on any feature of nature, share the link with us in the comments section. You may also leave a link to your own site if you have one. We will give credit to the first person that shares the link to a guide if and when we write the article for it. We are looking for guides from all over the world, so one for your area would be very helpful.