Trees with smooth bark
Smooth bark is easiest to read on a younger tree. Look at the marks on it: faint lines, dashes, bands of diamonds or resin blisters.
What to look for
- BeechFaint lines running across
HornbeamSilver or orange marks running up, lumpy with age
RowanSilvery grey with dark dashes across
AspenCream, with bands of small black diamonds
A fir, such as noble firResin blisters, on a conifer
Common beechSmooth silvery grey with faint horizontal lines
Ewan Shilland, CC BY 4.0HornbeamSmooth grey, ridged like muscle, with wriggling marks
anguspritchard, CC BY 4.0RowanSmooth silvery grey, streaked with short dark dashes
jamie-aa, CC BY 4.0AspenCream, banded with small black diamonds
Noble firSmooth pale grey with resin blisters
Eric Tittley, CC BY 4.0Common whitebeamGrey and smooth, a few cracks with age
Victor Heng, CC BY 4.0Copper beechSmooth thin grey, with a graft swelling low down
Downy birchGreyish white with grey bands, pale to the foot
Kieran Roy Powell, CC BY 4.0HollySmooth-looking, brownish grey, with small warts
Tree of heavenDark grey, smooth, with fine pale vertical streaks
Logan, CC BY 4.0White poplarPale grey, with rows of black diamonds
In the app
Not sure? Ask the app
- Name it from a photoA leaf, the bark or a flower, and Treely names the tree
- No signal? The guided keyOne simple question at a time, about what you can see
- Every part, through the yearSo you can name it in winter as surely as in June
- A short round each dayUntil you know them on sight
Free to download.
Photographs: Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), Ewan Shilland (CC BY 4.0), anguspritchard (CC BY 4.0), jamie-aa (CC BY 4.0), benjamis (CC0), Eric Tittley (CC BY 4.0), Victor Heng (CC BY 4.0), bobwardell (CC0), Kieran Roy Powell (CC BY 4.0), tomerler (CC0), Logan (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.