Reading Nature
The Outline of Spring
By TOM MURPHY

Review of Winter Tree Finder: A Manual for Identifying Deciduous Trees in Winter, by May Theilgaard Watts and Tom Watts.
(Berkeley: Nature Study Guild, 1970.)

“As I trudged through the snow around the pond, I noticed an interesting tree and took a twig from it. I had sharpened my Swiss army knife and it cut a cleaner slice this time.

Later, I sat at my desk and again swung my way through the Winter Tree Finder and much to my surprise ended up with American Elm.”

This passage is from an entry in my journal for December 28, 1995. I had decided that winter to try identifying trees in our fields and woods. You’d think such a project would be more suited to the summertime when trees are full of green clues to their identities, but with the help of a small pamphlet called the Winter Tree Finder, I discovered that deciduous trees without their leaves are still full of information. New copies of the book are still available today, but the one pictured on this page is mine, worn from many trips in my pack and back pocket.

Using the Winter Tree Finder is a satisfying way to learn on your own when you don’t have someone wise in woodlore to show you. The book’s method is simple and effective. It steps the reader through a series of paired choices, beginning with “If the tree is a conifer . . .” vs. “If the tree is not a conifer . . . .”  Depending on the choice,  the reader is directed to a symbol and page reference further on in the book. I had “swung my way” through the book because, like the trees themselves, it is full of branching choices.

The book assumes that the reader knows almost nothing. The basis for identification is the dormant tree’s twig: a diagram at the front of the book explains the terms to describe a twig, and the written instructions help with examining buds, bud scales, and leaf scars. By the way, since the book covers only deciduous trees, when you answer “yes” to the conifer question, you can go further only if the tree sheds its needles like the tamaracks whose glowing yellow brightens our hills after the other trees stand bare.

Each page also contains diagrams and graphics. Maps of the U.S. show the natural range of the tree. Icons indicate the environment in which the trees might naturally grow—in lowlands or under taller forest trees, for example. Drawings of twigs, fruits, seeds, nuts, and sometimes details of buds and leaf scars are all designed to help the reader identify the trees.

I have also found that without the flashy leaves to distract me, I learn to know the trees a bit better. In summer it’s pull off the leaf, look it up in the book. Ah yes, a red maple. In winter, I needed to look more closely, see the tree more clearly. The American elms I saw by the pond are dead now, of course, done in by bark beetles and Dutch elm disease, the largest sprawled on the ground next to its jagged stump. But I saw them that December because I was looking when the cold had cleaned out and opened up the space, and the following spring and summer I knew to look for them in the crowd of foliage so I was able appreciate them for a few years before they were gone..

If you do not already know the trees in winter, I recommend not only getting the Winter Tree Finder, but bundling up on winter days and using it. With luck yours will get as beaten up as mine. And if you are buying outdoor clothes for someone this holiday, you might stick this little pamphlet in the package by way of encouragement.

Tom Murphy teaches nature writing at Mansfield University. You can contact him at readingnature@mountainhomemag.com.