In the early days of March in Vermont, the majority of trees look almost the same. The muted brown and leafless twigs make it difficult to identify what tree is which. At Centennial Woods, I originally had tried to identify a beech tree because the smooth bark was easy to identify among others, and I thought that it would stand out. As I walked through Centennial Woods, I thought that I had right away spotted an American Beech!
After looking for some twigs and other characteristics, I had to rethink what tree it was. At the bottom of the trunk, it was smooth bark and instead had engravings in it, similar to that of a northern red oak. As I looked up and scaled the tree, there were a few leaves hanging on at the top of its canopy. Through further inspection, I had come to the conclusion that this tree was a northern red oak.
I knew that I could decipher it from cotton woods because I had the evidence of red oak leaves at the top branches of the tree. There was no evidence of flowering on the buds of the trees