One of my Favorite Places on Earth: Under a Tree

If you know anything about me, you know I love trees as much as some people love their family. They’re majestic, beautiful, awe-inspiring, life-giving, and a million other “gushy” adjectives.

Trees, not other people’s families.

As for a favorite tree, it’s whichever one is in front of me at the moment. When looking through the pictures I’ve taken with my camera or phone there are always scads of trees among my family, food, cats, and coffee. I simply love being in the company of trees.

When out with my husband, I’ll often see a tree I just HAVE to take a picture of. He’s gotten to where he’ll see an especially cool tree and just say, “I know,” as he looks for a place to pull over.

If trees do it for you as well OR you’d simply like to learn more about identifying trees – for yourself or with kids – I’d love to tell you about an app I’m having fun with: The Leafsnap app.

I came across the Leafsnap app a few weeks ago when I was searching for tree-related apps. I downloaded it (it’s free) and since I’ve enjoyed it, I thought I’d tell you about it.

You take a picture of a leaf, then the app will give you choices of “likely” matches.  You can take pictures of leaves, then pull the pictures (one at a time) from your photo album within the app or you can open the app and snap a picture directly.

You have to place the leaf (single leaves only) against a solid white background. I’ve used printer paper as a backdrop as well as the hood of a white van. Both worked great.

If you were at, say, a public park and didn’t have a white car or piece of printer paper handy, you could always try a bathroom sink.

The background has to be solid white. If there’s anything beside the white or even shadows falling over the white, the app will tell you to get your act together – okay, it doesn’t actually say that, but how cool would that be?

It simply says that it appears your background isn’t white.  No big deal, really, simply place your leaf against a solid white background.

For my tests, I picked leaves off of the ground and off of trees as well (they were trees in my own yard, so they didn’t object). I’d say about 8 times out of 10 the app showed the accurate tree in the choices. It did insist that a Sycamore leaf was a Maple leaf, but in all fairness, I can see how it’d detect similar shapes.

{Continued Beneath the Tree…}

A Favorite Tree in the Elk & Bison Prairie (Land Between the Lakes)

If you’re using the app with kids (and I’m ALL for teaching young people about nature), they’ll look at it as a really fun adventure. Their “game” of collecting leaves and doing a little detective work will also be a learning experience.

When we teach kids about nature, it not only provides them with knowledge they’ll use in school as well as life, it teaches them to respect the environment. Especially if moms, dads, grandparents, aunts and uncles point out to them how beautiful trees are and how necessary they are for the animals that depend upon them.

When you click on each individual suggestion the app makes, Leafsnap shows what a leaf from this particular tree looks like from front and back. It also shows pictures of the seed, flower, bark, and petiole (the stalk that attaches the leaf to the stem).  With this information, you can determine if you have the right tree or an impostor.

When you find yourself comparing tree leaves, flowers, barks, and other “clues,” you rack up a great amount of knowledge about each tree.

You can also simply use the app for browsing and comparing leaves. Granted, I’m a tree nerd, but I’ve had fun comparing the different varieties of Maple trees and even found a variety I didn’t even know existed.

Visit the Leafsnap website for more information or search for “Leafsnap” in iTunes.  You don’t have to be a tree nerd to have fun with this app.