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.

A hardy shrub or small tree to about 5 m with small prickly aromatic leaves and white to pink flowers almost year round.

The common waxleaf hedge shrub of Texas subdivisions, a dense evergreen 6-12 feet tall (to 20 as a small tree) with thick glossy leaves, cream flowers in late spring and blue-black berries.

A fast evergreen shrub or small tree (25-40 feet) with glossy dark leaves, panicles of heavy-scented cream flowers in late spring and masses of blue-black berries that birds carry into every greenbelt and creek bottom in Austin, where it forms dense evergreen thickets that shade out everything beneath.

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, short-lived tree (30-40 feet) with lacy dark leaves, fragrant lilac flowers in spring and clusters of yellow marble-sized berries that hang on all winter.

An iconic sprawling coastal tree to 20 m with a canopy that can spread 10 to 50 m, leathery dark leaves and crimson bottlebrush flowers around Christmas.

A small, fast, deciduous tree to about 8 m with an open umbrella crown, feathery leaves and long 'drumstick' pods.

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 thorny, deep-rooted shrub or tree normally about 10 m (to 20 m) that fixes nitrogen, tolerates extreme drought and salinity and produces sweet pods that livestock spread.

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

A dense, much-branched evergreen shrub or small tree of 5 to 10 m with grey-green leaves and small inedible black olives spread by birds and foxes.

An extremely fast tree with huge velvety heart-shaped leaves, showy upright clusters of fragrant violet foxglove-like flowers before the leaves in spring, and woody capsules that release thousands of tiny winged seeds.

The classic Christmas tree, a narrow conical conifer to 40 m with dark green needles and long hanging cones.

A dense, narrow, symmetrical spruce with stiff pale to blue-green needles that smell skunky when crushed and slender hanging cones.

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 tall, straight pine with long needles in bundles of three, prickly cones and, on mature trees, orange-brown bark in big jigsaw plates that many people say smells of vanilla or butterscotch.

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.

A tall pine of up to 35 m with blue-green needles in pairs and orange-red flaking bark on the upper trunk, becoming flat-topped and picturesque with age.

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.

A tough, heat- and drought-proof shade tree (30-35 feet) with fine compound leaves that turn fiery orange and red in fall even in Texas, which made it a nursery favorite and a common Austin street tree.

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.

A big, fast riparian tree, often with several leaning trunks, mottled white, tan and gray bark, large maple-like leaves and hanging strings of bristly seed balls.

A huge, fast shade tree with cream, olive and tan camouflage bark that flakes off in plates, big maple-like leaves and paired bristly seed balls that hang through winter.

A long-lived native conifer growing to about 30 m with thick, stringy reddish bark, stiff brownish-green needle-like leaves and red fleshy fruit that kererū and other birds eat.

A slender tree with smooth chalky-white bark marked with black scars and nearly round leaves on flattened stalks that tremble in the slightest breeze and turn brilliant gold in fall.