Distinguishers of spruce: white spruce—smaller cones, smells like cat urine. Black spruce-- small cones, found in wet areas like bogs, has small hairs on twigs (use a hand lens and check near the end of the twig). Blue spruce—long cones
Fraxinus americana (white ash) tends to have clearly stalked leaflets with whitened undersides. The leaflets of F. pennsylvanica (green ash) have short stalks and those of F. nigra are sessile (they have no stalk), and both lack a conspicuously whitened undersurface. On well developed branches of Fraxinus americana the leaf scars are often concave along the upper edge and the buds originate well within the curved portion of the leaf scar. The leaf scars of Green and Black ash are not concave along the upper edge or only slightly so. Fraxinus americana tends to occur primarily in upland forests, often with Acer saccharum . F. nigra is most often restricted to clearly wet sites. F. pennsylvanica is by far the commonest species of Ash in the southern two thirds of the state and often thrives in disturbed, young woods, both upland and lowland, and in old fields and other disturbed, open sites. The autumn leaf color of healthy F. americana trees often has a rich purplish tone or a distinctive reddish brown color, compared to the mostly yellow autumn leaves of F. nigra and F. pennsylvanica .
Ulmus rubra is similar to Ulmus americana . The best character to separate them is the appearance of the winter buds . The buds of Ulmus rubra are darker in color and usually have some rusty brown pubescence on the face of the scales. Buds of U. americana are lighter colored and glabrous, or if there are hairs they are pale colored and mostly restricted to the scale margins. The leaves are similar between the two species, but U. rubra leaves tend to be rougher on the upper surface and at least some leaves are strongly folded upward along the midvein. The fruit lacks the marginal cilia of the fruits of U. americana .
Alternate leaves found on cornus alternifoliaa
Red oak has pointed lobe tips, but shallow sinuses (less than half way to main vein)
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