Source: Natural Resources Canada
Western Red Cedar
Western red cedar is characteristic to the Coast and Columbia Forest Regions of British Columbia. Its foliage is a dark, lustrous green; the bark is dark reddish-brown, fibrous, shreddy and vertically ridged. In moist bottomland soils trees of this species can stretch to heights of 45 to 60 m with a diameter of 1 to 2.5 m. Cathedral-like western red cedar groves are havens for outdoor enthusiasts mesmerized by these towering trees. Its size, durability and straight grain make this an important timber tree. Practically all shakes and shingles are made of red cedar and it is considered one of the better boat and canoe building woods. In thin veneers, it is the principal wood selected for covering racing shells. Western red cedar is a favored species wherever lumber is exposed to conditions favoring decay.
Lodgepole Pine is native to western Alberta and most of British Columbia. Its needles are bunchied in pairs, 2.5 to 7.5 cm long. Inland, this species grows tall, slender and straight to heights of 25 m; along the treeline and the coast, the trees are often contorted and shrubby.
White birch has a wide range across Canada from coast to coast and into the Northwest Territories. The branches of the young trees are dark, reddish-brown to black. Itís the mature trees with their distinctive papery white bark that give this species its nickname: paper birch. Resourceful Natives discovered that the layered bark could be peeled into long strips and lashed together to create the famous birchbark canoe Ė a Canadian icon.
White spruce is widely distributed across Canada from Newfoundland to British Columbia and north to the Arctic Circle. Its needles are similar to black spruce [link] twice as long (2.5 cm) and most often crowded on the upper side of the branch. The outer bark is ash brown; exposed inner bark is silver. White spruce forests play and important role in maintaining soil stability and watershed values.
Eastern White Pine
Eastern white pine is found in Newfoundland and the Maritimes, and in both southern Quebec and Ontario, comprising the southern tip of Canadaís Boreal Forest. Easily identified by its bundles of 5 needles, 7 to 13 cm long, its gray bark is marked by rectangular blocks. This is the largest of the Northeastern conifers, growing to a height of 23 to 30 m in moist, sandy loam soils; often forming pure stands.
Yellow birch, the most valuable of native birches, is found in parts of Newfoundland, the Maritimes, southern Quebec and Ontario. It is easily identified by the yellowish-bronze exfoliating bark for which it is named; the inner bark gives off a wintergreen aroma. Yellow birch is the largest of its species in eastern Canada, reaching a height of 25 m and base of 2 m. Though slow growing, these trees can live up to 150 years among other hardwoods and conifers in the moist well-drained soils of uplands and mountain ravines.
Balsam fir grows extensively across a wide range in the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, much of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and parts of Alberta. Balsam needles are flat, usually blunt or notched at the tip. The young bark is often blistered with resin; on mature trees the bark turns gray to reddish brown and in scaly plates.
Red spruce is characteristic of the Acadian Forest in eastern Canada and the eastern part of Ontarioís Great Lakes-St Lawrence Forest. It is a medium-size tree that can grow to be more than 400 years old. Itís needles are similar to those of black spruce [link] but longer; the bark is dark gray to brown and inner bark is reddish brown. Red spruce grows best along the edge of streams and bogs where it can stretch to 21 m tall.
|Prince Edward Island
Red oak is common in most of the Maritimes (excluding Newfoundland), southern Quebec and Ontario. It has been extensively planted as an ornamental because of its symmetrical shape and brilliant red fall foliage. The leaves are large, up to 12 cm wide and 20 cm long; the bark is dark-brown to black, ridged and furrowed. The tree grows 15 to 21 m tall with a base of up to one metre.
|Newfoundland & Labrador|
One of the six principal species of the Boreal Forest, black spruce is common across Canada including the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories. Black spruce grows best in boggy locations where it can reach heights of 10 to 13 m. Its dark green needles are not prickly, but plump to 4-sided in cross-section and about 1 cm long. The outer bark is reddish brown, the inner bark is olive green when fresh.
Commonly known as subalpine fir, this species is native to the mountainous Yukon interior where it skirts the treeline, the coast of southeastern Alaska, and western Alberta and British Columbia. The alpine fir is an evergreen covered in 2.5 to 4.5 cm blue-green needles with rounded, notched tips. At maturity the bark is gray-brown, scaly and furrowed.
The tamarack boasts one of the widest ranges of all North American conifers. It is common in all Canadian provinces and ranges into the Northwest Territories near the Arctic Circle. Unlike most conifers, the tamarack is deciduous. While confers tend to lose about one-third of their needles each year, the larch drops all itís needles each fall. In spring new soft, flat needles grow in dense, brush-like clusters at tips of short, spur-like shoots. Tamarack bark is thin, scaly and gray to reddish brown.
Nunavut Territory has not yet proclaimed an official tree.
As Nunavut occupies an area mostly above the tree line, trees are a precious rarity.
The Maple Leaf
There are ten maple species in Canada, but it is the sugar maple that is most commonly thought of as our national tree. A stylized version of its 5-lobed leaf - one of the countryís most recognizable icons - adorns the Canadian flag. Its leaves are 7 to 13 cm in diameter, and like all maples turn a colourful red-gold in the fall. The bark of the young sugar maple is smooth, gray-brown but turns scaly and furrowed with maturity.
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