Audubon at Home: Native Tree Identification

Pre-registration for this Alabama Audubon course is required by 12 p.m. CDT Monday, October 18th, and space is limited. Visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-10-19/ for more information and to register.

Fall is an excellent time to learn to identify native trees by their leaves, fall color, buds, fruits, branch and bark patterns, and site and soil preferences. In this class, you will be introduced to the common and Latin names and identifying characters of over sixty prevalent native tree species from original photographs taken in the last year by the instructors, Henry Hughes and Michelle Blackwood.

The approximate class schedule will be:

Day 1: Gymnosperm Families: Cypress (juniper, bald-cypress) and Pine (pines, hemlock)

Day 2: Angiosperm Families: Sweetgum, Custard-Apple, Holly, Ginseng, Birch, Catalpa, Hop, Dogwood, Ebony, Heath, and Pea

Day 3: Angiosperm Families: Beech (chestnut, beech, oaks) and Walnut (hickory, walnut)

Day 4: Angiosperm Families: Laurel, Magnolia, Hibiscus, Fig, Olive, Sycamore, Rose, Willow, Soapberry, and Elm

Day 5: Exotic and invasive species, such as paulownia, tree-of-heaven, and mimosa

Where and when do we meet? This online course meets on five consecutive Tuesdays (10/19, 10/26, 11/2, 11/9, and 11/16), from 6–7 p.m. CDT. It will be a one-hour online class with some time at the end for questions.

Cost: Your one-time registration fee of $50 covers all five meetings.* (While you are not required to attend each class, do note that we cannot refund individuals for partial attendance.) We will be recording the webinar and making it available to participants for a week after the class.

Textbook: The class will be organized around the beautifully illustrated new book, Trees of Alabama, by Lisa J. Samuelson with photographs by Michael E. Hogan—part of the Gosse Nature Series of the University of Alabama Press, published in 2020 and as such, supported by Alabama Audubon. This book is recommended but not necessary. It can be ordered locally from Thank You Books, from your favorite bookseller, or at UA Press.

Registration: To register, visit https://alaudubon.org/event/2021-10-19/.

About the instructors: Henry Hughes and Michelle Blackwood share a lifelong interest in the natural environment and have been instructors at Audubon Mountain Workshop for many years, most recently co-teaching “Flowers, Fruits, and Seeds” and “Rivers, Floodplains, and Watersheds,” with versions for both children and adults. They have worked together for twenty-three years on protection of the Cahaba River and Shades Creek watersheds through Friends of Shades Creek. Both currently serve on the board and stewardship committee of the Cahaba River Society. “Audubon at Home: Native Tree Identification” came about from weekly hikes throughout the Cahaba-Shades Creek Watershed during 2020 and 2021. They shared in locating, researching, and photographing the native trees of Alabama’s forests and teaching the course for the first time in October 2020.