Lots of Trees—One With Leaves a Yard Long

As the head forester at the Extension Office, Elwood received a lot of calls from residences interested in identifying the trees on their property. If the caller felt color photographs would help them identify the trees, Elwood would recommend the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees (Eastern). If the caller preferred drawings that emphasized the unique feature of a particular species, Elwood would recommend either Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Trees or the Golden Guide to Field Identification - Trees of North America.

Recently, probably because the leaves were starting to take on their bright fall colors, Elwood had been getting a lot of tree identification calls. Some were even calling back and asking Elwood to visit their property, because despite spending a lot of time reading field guides, they still could not decide what kind of tree they had in their front yard.

Friday afternoon when Elwood mentioned to Ken that he did have time to visit everyone in the county who couldn't decide if the tree in their front yard was a hemlock or a spruce Ken said -

Before you visit, suggest they buy Forever Green - The Dartmouth College Campus - An Arboretum of Northern Trees and then visit the Dartmouth College campus. The book has interesting information about the trees on the Dartmouth campus, but for those who want to identify trees there are maps which show the location of the different trees. I have always found that if I show someone a couple of elms, or several butternut trees they can usually identify the trees.

That evening, on the way home from work, Elwood stopped at the bookstore for a copy of Forever Green.

After dinner, Elwood spent a little time reading about the trees on the Dartmouth College campus. He knew most of the trees common to northern New England, the various species of oak, elm, maple, pine, birch and ash could be found on the campus. but he had not realized that the collection of trees on the Dartmouth campus included a number of Asian trees, the Amur Cork Tree, the Katsuratree, Oriental 'Kwanzan' Cherry, Kousa Dogwood, Japanese Tree Lilac, Korean Mountainash and the Japanese Pagodatree. The more Elwood read the more he wanted to visit the trees on the Dartmouth campus.

Before putting the book down for the evening, Elwood turned to the back where he found maps for a "Center Campus Tree Walk" that promised "Fifty Trees in Fifty Minutes." When Elwood noticed that the tour included the Kentucky Coffeetree which had "leaves measuring up to 36 inches long and 24 inches wide" he knew the twins, who had been busy collecting leaves to make leaf collages, would be as excited as he was about visiting the trees at Dartmouth.

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