After a couple of years, in which I learned a great deal about trees – partly thanks to my client, the Niedersächsische Landesforsten – I recently completely revised and lovingly corrected my tree leaves, so that every tiny detail is finally right (I hope)! The revised identification chart is now available at Posterlounge (also via Amazon and eBay!).
With this identification chart, infographic or display board, the leaves or leaf shapes of 25 European trees such as Apple, Crabapple, Sycamore, Birch, Beech, Alder, Ash, Aspen, Field Maple, Hornbeam, Hazel, Wild Cherry, Lime, Plane, Poplar, Norway Maple, Robinia (Black Locust), Horse Chestnut (Buckeye), Red Oak, Holly, Pedunculate Oak (German Oak or Common Oak), Sessile Oak, Elm, Rowan and Willow can be identified, matched and memorized.
How I work
What I’m illustrating here is actually the identification charts I always wanted to have myself! I’m super excited about trees, but at the same time, I’m really bad at remembering names and characteristics, so I tend to need cheat sheets. And if I draw them myself – and look at them often enough afterwards –, I sometimes actually notice what’s what… :)
It’s surprisingly time-consuming to not just copy a pretty photo, but instead to first understand and then draw some sort of generalized cross-section, i.e. the blueprint of the species, so to speak, from countless pictures that all depict the personal characteristics of the respective unique object, but that is exactly what helps so much with identification, and that is why I – in general – very much prefer to identify flora and fauna with simple drawings than with photos.
After I had seen black-and-white silhouettes of leaves a long time ago (unfortunately, I don’t remember where?) and found them to be significantly more different (and also more suitable for autumn!) than illustrations of green, special leaf personalities, which somehow look all the same at first sight (often, they’re not even shown from the same top perspective!), I have decided to create my own identification charts in a similarly simplified and black-and-white way, so that all characteristics can be recognized at first sight, without the need for a complicated identification key.
Through various commissions, those charts became a series – first with leaf shapes, animal tracks and bird flight in Lily Lux Notizbuch, then with tree shapes, tree fruits, tree shoots, forest animals and water animals for “Waldstück” by Niedersächsische Landesforsten as well as the cooperation with Hidden Tracks for detailed animal tracks.
If you think that I’ve made errors in my details, feel free to kindly let me know, and please link evidence. Thank you!
This poster goes really well with my – meanwhile quite extensive – series of natural science identification charts with motifs from flora and fauna, which are also available from the Posterlounge (also via Amazon und eBay!).
In addition, most of my guides are also available as postcards or small-format art prints at Artflakes [EU] and as printed products such as shirts, mugs, cushions, carpets, towels, blankets, curtains, notebooks, greeting cards, wrapping paper, stickers, magnets, bags and much more at Redbubble [EU + US] and Søciety6 [US]! ➔
References
Since I first started making those identification charts, I have acquired a fairly extensive forest library, which I mainly use to coordinate characteristics, but in which objects are often misleadingly depicted (e.g. chestnut leaf with only 4 fingers) or described (e.g. elm without the typical asymmetry of the leaf base) – and that’s why it can It can be quite informative, if in doubt, to always consult more than one book… Those are the books I look at most often:
★ Gottfried Amann: “Bäume und Sträucher des Waldes: Taschenbildbuch”, Meisungen Neumann 1972
★ Elizabeth Martin, Norma Birgin, Terry Callcut: “Bäume erkennen und bestimmen”, Naumann und Göbel 1998
★ Alan Mitchell: “A Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe”, Harper Collins 1974
★ Tony Russell: “Nature Guide: Trees: The World in Your Hands”, DK Nature Guide 2012
★ Steve Marsh: “Die 50 schönsten Bäume der Welt: Ein (…) Kunstwerk”, Dorling Kindersley 2019 (Thanks, Bruni! :))
★ Otto Schmeil: “Pflanzenkunde: Biologisches Unterrichtswerk”, Manuscriptum 2009 nach Quelle & Mayer 1973
★ Margot Spohn, Marianne Golte-Bechtle, Roland Spohn: “Was blüht denn da?”, Kosmos 2015
★ Felix / Tomann / Hisek: “Der große Naturführer; Unsere Tier- und Pflanzenwelt in Farbe”, Kosmos 1984
I also find Wikipedia and Baumkunde to be very helpful time and again, especially for missing details (e.g. size) in my books. When identification by poster reaches its limits in field use, the app Flora Incognita can help!
Great thanks to Matthias Klesse and Angelika Luckhaus for tirelessly watching, learning and guessing along! <3
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