Mary Jo DiLonardo has worked in print, online, and broadcast journalism for 25 years and covers nature, health, science, and animals. Young trees sometimes have smooth bark that's unbroken by ridges.

Training one’s eye to identify trees is a fun way to connect with the world around us and can be useful for making home landscape selections. Trees are often identified using leaf shape and color, ...

DARIEN -- Most people walk past trees and plants every day without paying much attention to the biological diversity surrounding them. "A lot of people walk through, and all they see is a tree," said ...

If asked to describe what tree bark looks like, most people probably would say something like: “It’s rough and brown and covers the trunk of a tree.” That is a good description of many trees, but not ...