Lakeland Public Television presents
Common Ground made possible by The Minnesota Arts and Cultural
Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota. Production
funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by
First National Bank Bemidji continuing their second
century of service to the community. A partnership for
generations. Member FDIC. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Scott: Welcome to Common Ground. I'm your host Scott
Knudson. In this episode due to popular demand
Biologist and Ecologist, Rob Knudson, my
father, returns to teach us how to
identify the common evergreens of Northern
Minnesota. ♪ ♪ ♪ Rob: My name's Rob Knudson. I'm
a Biologist, Ecologist and a
retired teacher. And two years ago we
did a program for Common Ground where I helped you learn
the deciduous trees of North
Central Minnesota. I tried to
learn them by the leaves and the bark. Today,
we're going to do a follow up
to that program. Where we take the
things that people normally call pine trees, the conifers and
sort them out. If you'd like to review the deciduous tree program.
Just go to the link at the
bottom of the screen. ♪ Okay, today we're going to take a look at
the evergreens, what most people call the pines. And we're going
to learn to identify them from the needles, from the
trunks and from the shape of the tree. It's not really
correct to call these trees pines. Because pines is
simply one of the groups that we have around here. We
have other genuses. We have
pines, we have spruces, we have firs,
we have larches and we have cedars
also. The best term to use to describe these
trees are conifers. Now the word conifer is
actually Latin-Greek. Anytime you see
the term "ifera", "offera", "ifer" like
conifer "ifer" refers to the bearer of
something. And obviously
conifer refers to the bearer of cones.
Referring to the way that these trees reproduce.
These trees all reproduce using cones instead
of flowers. ♪ Most deciduous trees that have
fruit reproduce with flowers and are
pollinated by insects. The smell right here is just wonderful.
These happen to be wild plums. But the same thing is true of
these Nanking cherries and pincherries and chokecherries
and crab apples. ♪ ♪ In most of the species of conifers, the trees that
reproduce with cones, the male pollen cones, which you
can see here on this Jack Pine and here on this Red Pine are located at the bottom of the
tree. So when the wind blows
the pollen from the male pollen cones, the
female cones which turn into the things we
normally call pine cones are
located usually at the top of the tree.
The pollen from a tree does not pollinate the
female cones of the same tree. So we
get cross pollination. Cross pollination getting
genetic material from two parents. The
advantage of cross pollination is that insures
that in the next generation of pine trees there's going to
be some variation. If you have variation, if
everybody's a little bit different then you
can have some of the trees a little better suited to live
where they do than the other ones. And those are the ones
live long enough to reproduce and they pass on those genes to
the next generation. And you
have a better adapted tree. That's why
trees are different from state to state.
And even from area to area within the same
state. In the conifers, it's actually at least a two
year process from the time that the pollen
fertilizes the eggs in the female cone. Until the
cone actually matures, dries out, opens up
and sheds it's seeds. So much of the culture
we have in Northern Minnesota revolves around our forests and
our coniferous trees. And it really is a lot
more fun to be able to walk
through the woods and recognize what it is that
you're looking at. It's early May in Northern Minnesota. And it'd be a great
time to take a walk in the
woods and look at some of our common
evergreens. We'll take a look at the needles. We'll take a
look at the bark. And we'll
take a look at the general shape of the tree for
comparison purposes. Let's start with one of the
very common evergreens in Northern Minnesota, the Red
Pines. Also known as a Norway
Pine. It's real common growing wild
in the forest and in large
plantations. This is a nice stand of approximately 50 year old Red
Pine. Look at the color of the bark. Look at the size of the
needles and the shape of the tree. These are
Red Pines. You can see how much this tree grew every year when it
was small. When these branches were the
topside branches the top of the tree
was right there. When these branches were the side branches this was the top
of the tree. One years growth. There's another year.
There's another year. And you can see it going up the
tree. You can tell the Red Pine again
by the color of the bark. ♪ Here's the White Pine. Another
real common species of evergreen in
Northern Minnesota. Known for it's beautiful white
wood used for paneling and other construction. Here's a real good example of
the typical profile of a White Pine. Okay here's the needles on the
branch of a White Pine. The one pine that you may
confuse this one with is the Red Pine but the White Pine has very very
soft needles as compared to the Red Pine which
are much stiffer and they're bigger. If you wanted to get
technical about it the White
Pine the needles occur in bunches of
five. Whereas on the Red Pine there's
only two. The White Pine needles are also
significantly smaller than Red Pine needles. Which are the
biggest needles we have on any
pine. White Pines also have the
biggest cones of any of the conifers
that we have in Northern Minnesota - six, eight inches
long at least. The seeds have fallen out of
these cones, last fall probably. This is a
White Pine. Here's a White Pine and
you can see as you look up the trunk how
much that White Pine grew each year
by the position of the nodes. Where the branches come
out. That top one you can see that it grew almost
3 feet in one year. This is a White Pine. ♪ Here's an example of one of the things
that can happen to a White Pine
here in Northern Minnesota. Two years
ago this tree was almost completely
stripped of its bark by a porcupine. And if you look you can see that the
pine tree has secreted a whole bunch of sap
trying to cover up its wounds
but this one's so substantially
stripped that I'm pretty sure this one will
be dead in the next year or
two. ♪ ♪ Here is a great comparison of a mature White Pine on the
right and a mature Red Pine on the
left. Note the difference in the
bark. ♪ This rather ragged looking conifer is
another one of the pines. This one you can see is not tall and straight like a Red
Pine. Pretty typical. One of the most common trees
that we have in Northern
Minnesota. You might notice that it's needles are shorter than either a Red Pine
or a White Pine. This is in fact a pine, this is
Jack Pine. The tree itself can be just
about any shape. And this is a very typical
looking Jack Pine tree. You can see the bark is just kind of a
rough bark. But this is what they
look like. This is Jack Pine. One of the most common
trees of Northern Minnesota. On this Jack Pine you can see
on these lower branches you can see the pollen cones that are starting to
form. In another month or so
these will be releasing gobs and gobs and
gobs of pollen. And then way up at the top of
the tree you'll see where most of the
seed cones are located. This is a Jack Pine. Okay, right here, this lowest branch that
we see is a Jack Pine. Take a note of the length
of the needles, and the color and
the shape of the branches. Look right above it. Right above it
you have a tree that looks kind of like a
Jack Pine but the needles are longer and a
little bit more of a blue green color than a dark
green color. That tree right there occurs around Northern
Minnesota mostly in plantations. That is what
most people call a Scotch Pine. Technically the proper name for
it is a Scots Pine. And it was imported from
Europe and it's planted in plantations. But we happen to
have one right here. It's
easily confused with Jack Pine. The Jack Pine
has shorter needles and they're darker green. Scots Pine has
longer needles and not as long as White Pine or
Red Pine, but longer than a Jack Pine. Ok,
here's a good comparison between an Eastern White Pine
and a Scots Pine. We compared it to Jack Pine
already. The Scots Pine has
shorter needles, thicker needles than
the White Pine. And they're a little bit more
of a bluish tinge to them than
the White Pine. You can see the White Pine has
much finer needles and they're greener than the Scots Pine. Here we have the most common spruce in Northern Minnesota.
The northern White Spruce. Check out the
nice conical shape which is an
adaptation for shedding snow. Here's a great example of a probably 100+ year old White Spruce tree.
Totally mature with a nice White Pine
in the background for
comparison. Okay, this is White Spruce. I want you to note how much variation there can be
from one tree to another. This is White Spruce.
This is also White Spruce. Look at how much longer
the needles are on this one than that one. How much more
blue they are on this one than this one. These are kind
of the extremes. This one has shorter needles. This one
has longer. They're both pokey. It all has to do with
where the tree is growing. How much light it gets. How
much water it gets. How crowded they are. How stressed they
are. They're not all exactly the same. But they're both
pokey branches. This is White Spruce. Here's a young White Spruce. Note the texture of the bark.
Pokiness of the needles. This particular one is probably 11 or 12 years old. Count the nodes. This is a real good example of a Colorado Blue Spruce. You
can see that it's more bluish colored
than our White Spruce that we have around
here. I know it's Colorado Blue
Spruce because I planted it myself so
it's planted in somebody's yard. Things that you'll notice right
away is the needles are longer than the White
Spruce and it's very definitely even pokier
that White Spruce that we have around here. This
is Colorado Blue Spruce. Along with White Spruce and Ornamental Colorado
Blue Spruce you may encounter 2 more kinds
of spruce as you get around
Northern Minnesota. If you were
to go farther north and east of
here up in let's say the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
you'd find some that look kind
of like this only they're darker. Those
are called Black Spruce. We don't many of those right
where we're filming so I don't
have an example. And if you are out in
the woods and you come across a plantation of spruce that don't
look right those are probably Norway Spruce. Again, usually they don't happen in the woods.
Sometimes you see them along
the sides of roads. But usually they're
in plantations for Christmas trees. Okay, here is a fairly classic example of a
branch from a Balsam Fir. What I would like you to
notice and try to remember about a
Balsam Fir, is if you see a branch where the needles
are fairly flattened that's probably a Balsam. And
the needles themselves are flat. And you can grab a Balsam Fir and it's nice and soft. Needles on a Balsam Fir are nice and flat. The branch is also flat and
they're soft to the touch. You can run your hand over them
and you feel no pain. Now for comparison, this is the
Balsam Fir. This is White Spruce. And you might notice that the
White Spruce has usually... shorter
needles. These needles are not flat on the surface. The
needles themselves are not flat . And
when you grab a White Spruce...it pokes you. Balsam Fir is nice and soft, doesn't poke.
White Spruce is kind of pokey. Balsam Fir on the right and White Spruce
on the left. Compare the needles. Kind of an
interesting note when it comes time to have
a Christmas tree White Spruce makes a beautiful
Christmas tree but it has a tendency to smell real bad in
the house. On the other hand, Balsam is
that tree that leaves that really, really nice
aroma. A little hint possibly to hunters: Balsam when you smash the needles gives off
that real strong Balsam smell and deer
are used to smelling that. One thing
that I would suggest is a good idea if you're going
to walk in the woods if you drop a Balsam branch to the ground,
and scrub your feet on it...like
that it'll mask the human odor. Ok, here's a good example of a
mature White PIne. And then right to
the left of it here we have an
opportunity to see a medium size Balsam Fir and White Spruce side by
side. Compare the tips, look at how
uniform the tip of the Balsam Fir is compare to the White Spruce on
the left. Well they aren't always this way. But as a
general rule this is the way they're going to look.
And then compare the bark. Yeah, here's a Balsam Fir and
then for comparison look at the bark
on the Balsam Fir and compare it to this similar
sized White Spruce. Here you can see some sap bubbles in the bark of a
Balsam Fir. One interesting thing that you
can see exceptionally well on Balsam Fir is you can
see the growth pattern of the branches. If you
look right up here, right to the tip
of the branch you can see, and
again this is May, you can see three brand
new little branches starting to
grow. Next year at this time, these
three branches will look like these
three branches. Last Spring at this time of the
year, this spot looked like that
spot. The year before that, this spot looked like that spot. That's one year growth, another
year growth. And by next Fall, this will be that
long and it'll have two new branches. This will have two
new branches and a new one there.
And if you look at the whole branch, you
can see that this branch is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven years old where I
broke it off. And you can also see that by
the fifth, sixth and seventh years it's starting
to lose it's needles. And that's why when you see a
branch on a tree there are no needles next to
the trunk of the older branches
because they lose them after five or
six years. Here's a rather interesting
group of conifers. These they have a
bark that's similar to a Spruce but
if you look they have a really,
really fine looking needle. These are
actually a type of larch. This is Tamarack. And
they always grow in low swampy areas.
They're tolerant of a lot of
water. You can see the yellow cowslips
down in the water. If you look very,
very closely you can see thousands
and thousands of little seed cones at the tops of these
trees. This is the only species of
Larch that we have. in Northern Minnesota. And in
days gone by, they used the really large Tamaracks to make railroad
ties. These are kinda neat because they're
the one species of conifers around here that
actually drop their needles during the winter time. If we
were to take this same shot in October or November these
would all be yellow. And then by the
middle of the winter they're
bare. They're just starting to grow
new needles right now by mid-summer the needles will
be about twice as big as they are right now.
These are Tamarack. Take a quick look at this
Tamarack branch. And you can real easily
see the pollen cones of the Tamarack there.
And here is the seed cone from last year. And that's
all the bigger they get on a Tamarack. Here's an example of a branch
of Northern White Cedar. Sometimes called
Arborvitae. It usually grows down in low
areas that are wet, Cedar swaps, maybe you've
heard that term. You might
notice that the needles on this are
totally different than anything
we've looked at so far. They're flat, they're not sharp, they're
soft. This is Northern White Cedar. A favorite winter forage for deer. Ok, here's a nice example of Northern White Cedar. If you look at the bark on the
trunk you can see that it's a
finer bark than most of the actual
pines and spruces and it'll pull off in
little strips. Usually this grows down in
swamps but this one happens to be one of the
few Cedars you'll find growing
on higher ground. This is a Northern White Cedar. This is a typical place where
Northern White Cedar grows, low and wet. You can also see that there's
some Balsam and even some Birch
in here. And several other kinds
of deciduous trees. This is a Cedar swamp. [leaves crunching] Here's something kind of
interesting we're down in the Cedar swamp,
and here's a nice fresh Timberwolf track. Here's
the four toes and there's his pad right
there. You can see how big he
is compared to my hand. That's not
a real big one. Now lets do a quick review of
what we've actually seen in our walk
through the forest. And get
ready for a little quiz at the end of the
program. Let's do a quick review of the things that are
actually pines. They're in the genus of the pines. This
again is White Pine, soft needles, about
three inches long. Five needles per
bunch. White Pine. The Red Pine, which has a
little bit more course needles and they come in
batches of two. The Jack Pine, which the
needles are shorter and kind of twisted
around. The same as the tree is. This particular one has some pollen cones on it. And finally
the Scotch Pine or Scots Pine which
is not native to Northern Minnesota. Often
times confused with the Jack
Pine. Scots Pine, Jack Pine, Red Pine and White Pine. Ok, let's take a look at the
spruce's. And the one tree that one may
be confused with a spruce. This again is Northern White Spruce, note the
length of the needles. Sharp needles, go all the way
around. Can be light green all the way
to more of a blue color, but that's the one
you find out in the woods. This
one is ornamental Blue Spruce.
Colorado Blue Spruce, this is the one
you usually see in town planted
in people's yards longer needles, real pokey. Hard to grab. And this is Balsam which is not a spruce it's a fir. And again,
flatter branches flat needles, nice and soft to
the touch as opposed to pokey to
the touch. Balsam Fir, Colorado Blue Spruce and Northern White Spruce. And finally these two, which
are significantly different
than the other branches that we've
looked at. This was Northern White Cedar. It's the
only Cedar that we have remember Red Cedar is actually
a type of Juniper. Flat branches, very very fleshy needles. Not sharp at
all. And this one, our only species
of larch, which is Tamarack. And the needles on this one
remember are deciduous, they
fall off in the fall. Now this is
May, so these are brand new
needles they will get a little bit
longer than this. This is Tamarack, which is a species of
Larch. And Northern White Cedar. Now let's have a little pre-quiz to see if you can remember some
of the things you've been
looking at. First of all let's look at
these two. Both of them have long needles. These needles are
softer than these, these are longer
than these these are darker green than
these. Ok, these are in bunches of five and these are in bunches of
two. [wind blowing] This was Red Pine and this is
eastern White Pine. Now these two. This is the one that's real
common just about everywhere around Northern Minnesota.
Shorter needles than either the White Pine or the
Red Pine. Kind of not as neat of a pattern as the White Pine or
the Red Pine. This is the one that's a real
scruffy tree, doesn't have any particular pattern to the tree.
And this is the one that comes from Europe that
sometimes is confused with this. And this
one will be in plantations this
one is just about everywhere. This is Jack Pine, real common. And
this was Scots Pine. These are the four kinds of
pines that we have around here. Ok,
here are the shorter needled trees around here, the ones that are
more conical shaped when you see them in the
woods. This was the one that's really, really
common around here comes in many different colors.
This was the one that came from out west
that you see in peoples yard. Both of
those are the ones with the pokey needles, longer
needles, shorter needles. This is the one that had a
similarly shaped tree but the needles are flat. And not pokey
at all. Ok, this one is White Spruce, Colorado Blue Spruce and Balsam Fir. Ok, this one real soft, fleshy leaves. Grows down
in low places. This is Northern White Cedar. And this was the other one that
grew in low places. This was
the one that was actually a deciduous
conifer. It's just growing new needles
but it loses it's needles in the winter time. This is Tamarack. A type of Larch. And now I've mixed them up. See
if you can figure out which ones are which without any
prompting at all. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ White Pine. ♪ ♪ Balsam Fir. ♪ ♪ ♪ Scots Pine. ♪ ♪ Northern White Spruce. ♪ ♪ ♪ Tamarack. ♪ ♪ ♪ Colorado Blue Spruce. ♪ ♪ White Cedar or Arborvitae. ♪ ♪ Jack Pine. ♪ ♪ ♪ Red Pine. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Conifers are the most majestic trees we have in
Northern Minnesota. Just look
at this beautiful big White Pine. It's really special to be able
to walk through the woods in
Northern Minnesota and it's even better
when you can actually recognize what it is that you're looking
at. ♪ ♪ ♪ Join us again on Common Ground. If you have an idea for Common
Ground in north central MInnesota email us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Production funding of Common
Ground was made possible in
part by First National Bank Bemidji.
Continuing their second century of service to the community. A
partnership for generations. Member FDIC. ♪ ♪ ♪
