Local Trees - Part 1

The first step on my journey around the Charles River is to look at the local trees! One of the first things about Boston that I came to appreciate was the trees. Before I moved to the Charles watershed, I was working at a summer camp in eastern Mass. When I had days off from leading hiking trips teaching young naturalists, I would drive across the beautiful Route 2 all the way to Boston to tour apartments and explore the city. That drive is fantastic and I enjoyed the hours of windy road and greener than green foliage, but the trees didn't end when I arrived and I found Boston to be shockingly covered in leaves and shade. There are plenty of areas where trees are sparce, but in much of the city you can find green spaces easily.

I currently live on the outskirt of the city and see the most trees as I enjoy a (when I can) daily walk around my local reservoir. Over the next few weeks, I hope to learn more about the trees I might see in my neighborhood, around the reservoir, and further beyond into the watershed of the Charles.

The first trees I will learn to identify and are the most common species for my area according to a city wide audit of the street tree inventory by the Boston Parks and Restoration Department. The order of these change depending on where you are in the city, but I would like to be able to identify the common trees all over the city and then learn more about what trees are natural to these areas.

• Honeylocust
• Littleleaf Linden
• Norway Maple
• Red Maple
• Pin Oak
• Northern Red Oak
• Japanese Zelkova
• London Planetree
• Hedge Maple
• Accolade Elm

From there, I will investigate what trees are natural to this area and ideally should be on that list but are not. The first few weeks of fall are really beautiful here and I am just in time to see some leaves change. I will fit in as much walking and picture taking as I can!