A fast-growing tree of up to 30 m with masses of white blossom in April, red summer cherries loved by birds and badgers, and fiery autumn colour.

A dense evergreen shrub or small tree, usually 3 to 6 m, with large glossy leaves, white flower spikes and black cherries that birds carry into woodland.

A single-trunked, non-suckering small tree (15-25 feet) with fragrant white blossoms in late winter before anything else is blooming, satiny blue-gray bark and tart edible plums in late summer.

A fast, narrow-crowned tree with shiny young bark marked by horizontal lenticels that matures into dark, scaly plates like burnt cornflakes.

The signature conifer of the Pacific Northwest and Oregon's state tree: narrow and pyramidal when young, becoming a tall column with deeply furrowed red-brown bark and branches only in the upper crown.

The ubiquitous white-flowering street tree of the 1980s and 1990s (30-50 feet), pyramidal with glossy leaves that turn purple-red in fall.

The classic oak of coastal California: a broad, dense evergreen with a short gnarled trunk, dark furrowed bark, small holly-like spiny leaves and slender acorns that ripen in one season.

A massive, long-lived oak that is pyramidal when young and becomes broad and rounded, often wider than tall, with light ashy-gray bark in flat plates.

A medium-large oak with a broad, rounded crown and bark that peels on young branches to show orange underneath.

A medium shade tree (usually 30-50 feet, taller on deep soil) with glossy, deeply lobed leaves that turn red in a good fall.

The live oak that actually grows wild across the Edwards Plateau and most Austin neighborhoods.

A small to medium oak (30-50 feet, often smaller) with smoky blue-green summer foliage that emerges peach-colored in spring and turns peach again in fall.

North America's largest oak and the signature tree of California's Central Valley savannas: a huge, round-crowned deciduous oak with pewter-gray checkered bark, deeply lobed leaves that turn yellow to orange before dropping, and long slender acorns.

A massive, long-lived white oak with huge leaves, thick corky bark and golf-ball-sized acorns in fringed cups.

A stately white oak with coarsely toothed, chestnut-like leaves that turn yellow in fall.

The oak of hilly, wetter western and northern Britain and Ireland, growing 20 to 40 m with a straighter trunk than English oak and stalkless acorns.

A fast-growing, nearly evergreen oak (45-60 feet) whose thick, waxy new leaves emerge pink before turning dark green.

The classic broad-crowned oak of lowland Britain and Ireland, growing 20 to 40 m with a wide spreading crown and acorns on long stalks.

A large, fast-growing oak with a rounded crown about as wide as tall and gray bark that develops shiny flat ridges like ski tracks.

A tall, straight red oak (50-90 feet) with deeply lobed leaves that turn scarlet in fall, more upright and faster-growing than its cousin the Texas red oak.

The classic wide, low-branching shade oak of the South, with small leathery leaves that stay on the tree all winter and drop as new leaves emerge in spring.

A thorny, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree with glossy oval leaves that stay green late into fall, dark peeling bark with orange inner wood, thorn-tipped twigs and clusters of black berries on female plants that birds eat and scatter (the fruit is a purgative, hence the name).

The seaward mangrove of the Americas, a tree of 5 to 20 m standing on arching red prop roots in the water, with leathery leaves and cigar-shaped propagules that drop and float to new mud.

The tall stilt-rooted mangrove of East African and Indo-Pacific shorelines, growing to 27 m with a trunk up to 70 cm, arching prop roots and long pencil-like propagules that drop and plant themselves in the mud.

A fast-growing, thorny, nitrogen-fixing tree of 15 to 25 m with fragrant white pea flowers that make prized honey and very rot-resistant timber.

A broad, fast-growing willow to 25 m whose brittle twigs snap with an audible crack and root wherever they wash up, so a single tree can colonise a whole river.

A dense, multi-stemmed evergreen shrub or small tree of 3 to 10 m (rarely 15 m) with glossy aromatic compound leaves and bright red berries at Christmas that birds spread.

A small, deciduous, flat-topped thorn tree to about 15 m (usually much smaller) with hooked thorns in threes and creamy flower spikes.

New Zealand's best-loved flowering tree, a small tree to 25 m (usually much less) with tiny leaflets and hanging golden flowers in late winter and spring that tūī and bellbirds flock to.

A slow-growing evergreen shrub or small tree (10-15 feet, occasionally taller) with glossy dark leaves and drooping clusters of purple flowers in early spring that smell strongly of grape bubble gum.