Today I took a cold and windy walk into Centennial Woods in search of trees to upload to iNaturalist. When looking for specific tree species, I decided to try to find a paper birch because it would be the easiest to identify. I was able to find one fairly quickly, but the twigs were not accessible so I decided to then search for a different species. Up the hill from my phenology spot, right off the trail, I found a small American Beech. I was able to quickly tell that it was not its lookalike, a young maple, because there was a singular leaf that had persisted all winter. Other key identification factors that I used were that the bark was smooth, the branches sprouted in an alternate fashion, and that it had spear shaped buds. This young tree had no evidence of flowering or fruiting but the buds were developing.
