A small, often multi-stemmed maple (now treated botanically as Acer tataricum subsp.

A fast, irregular, round-crowned tree and the only native maple with compound leaves, with green young twigs and little fall color.

One of the most widely planted shade trees in the eastern US, fast-growing to 40-70 feet with red flowers in late winter, red seeds in spring and reliable red or yellow fall color.

A large, dense, oval shade tree with gray-brown bark that furrows into plates and five-lobed leaves that turn brilliant yellow, orange and red in fall, often all on one tree.

A small, often multi-stemmed tree with smooth silvery-gray bark and a four-season show: clouds of white flowers in early spring, sweet blueberry-like fruit in June that birds strip within days, and orange-red fall color.

A fast-growing, usually multi-trunked tree (30-70 feet) with cinnamon-colored bark that peels in papery curls, the only birch that thrives in the hot, humid South.

A northern tree famous for chalk-white bark that peels in papery strips to show orange-pink beneath, with dark green leaves that turn bright yellow.

The Texas state tree: a huge, long-lived shade and nut tree that can pass 100 feet on good river-bottom soil.

An elm-like tree with a broad arching crown and gray bark covered in distinctive corky warts and ridges.

A beloved small flowering tree (20-30 feet) with rose-pink flowers crowding bare branches in early spring and big heart-shaped leaves.

Not a true willow but a relative of trumpet vine, with long narrow leaves and fragrant pink-to-white orchid-like flowers from late spring through fall that hummingbirds love.

The understory tree of eastern woods, 15-25 feet with layered branches, big white (or pink) bracts in spring, scarlet fall color and red berries birds strip in autumn.

A fast-growing round-headed shade tree (30-50 feet) with compound leaves that turn yellow in fall, native to far West Texas streambanks and planted by the thousands in Austin and San Antonio subdivisions in the 1970s-1990s for quick shade.

A living fossil with unmistakable fan-shaped leaves that turn clear golden yellow and drop almost all at once in autumn.

A medium-large tree with a broad, flat-topped crown of fine, fern-like leaves that cast light, filtered shade and turn yellow in fall.

A large, open tree with a coarse, picturesque winter silhouette, deeply fissured scaly bark and huge doubly compound leaves up to 3 ft long that emerge pink-bronze and turn yellow in fall.

A deciduous holly, shrub or small tree (12-20 feet), that drops its leaves in fall to reveal gray twigs loaded with bright red-orange berries that last all winter until the cedar waxwings arrive.

A tough evergreen shrub or small tree (12-20 feet) with tiny glossy leaves, pale gray bark and, on female plants, translucent red berries that persist through winter.

A large, valuable timber and nut tree (50-75 feet) with long feathery leaves that turn clear yellow and hard-shelled nuts in green husks that stain everything they touch.

A narrow, pyramidal to rounded evergreen with scale-like blue-gray to green foliage, shredding reddish-brown bark and waxy blue berry-like cones that birds eat.

A deciduous conifer: an open, fine-textured pyramid of soft blue-green needles in tufts that turn brilliant yellow in autumn and drop, leaving a rugged bare silhouette with tiny upright cones.

The tallest eastern hardwood: a fast, straight-trunked tree with an oval crown, square-tipped four-lobed leaves that turn clear gold in fall, and tulip-shaped green-and-orange flowers high in the canopy in late spring.

The South's signature evergreen: a dense pyramidal tree (50-80 feet) with huge glossy leaves, rusty brown underneath, and dinner-plate white flowers that perfume the yard in late spring and summer.

A fast, rounded, short-trunked tree with glossy, variably lobed leaves and sweet white-to-purple blackberry-like fruit in early summer on female trees.

A medium tree, pyramidal when young with horizontal branches, developing blocky 'alligator' bark with age.

A stiff, formal, pyramidal spruce with sharp four-sided needles in shades from green to striking silver-blue, cones with papery scales and purplish-gray scaly bark.

The long-lived pine of the fire-maintained savannas that once covered the Southeast, with the longest needles (to 18 inches) and largest cones of any eastern pine.

A large, fast conifer with soft blue-green needles in bundles of five, pyramidal when young and broad and flat-topped with age, with slender resin-tipped cones.

The fastest-growing southern pine and the backbone of the East Texas timber industry, reaching 60-90 feet with a tall bare trunk and an oval crown of 6-10 inch needles in threes.

One of the biggest trees in the East, fast-growing to 75-100 feet with a massive trunk and mottled white and gray bark that peels in plates.