Box elder: Although it does best on-moist sites, it is hardiest of the maples and will stand great extremes of temperature and dry soils/Short lived and poor form/ Fruit is food for mice, squirrels and birds/only compound leaved maple. Sometimes called ash leaf maple.

Red maple: Extract can be used with iron or aluminum salts to yield a dye - A11 causes a cinnamon color while iron sulfate causes black. Can use for maple syrup but takes much more sap. Can use for furniture.

Silver maple: One of the first trees to blossom in the spring/ Once a popular shade tree on city streets but the brittle benches would break off during a storm while roots would enter sewers and drain pipes/Leave not highly colored in the fall.

Sugar maple: One of the best fuel woods/most important hardwood in Michigan/ Ornamental tree along country roads and estates/ Does not thrive in cities/Indians taught early French settlers how to make sugar and syrup. Good furniture wood.

Black Maple: A variety of sugar maple/ Sides of leaves tend to bend downward.

Norway maple: Introduce/ leaves turn pale yellow in Fall /Rapid growth and long lived/ Best of maples for street-planting/ Holds leaves 2 weeks later than native maples/ Free from pests and diseases/ the fruits lie flat all-winter and in spring each raises its "flag".

Blue ash: Found in Ohio Valley and upper Mississippi Valley/ Sap turns blue when exposed to the air and pioneers made blue dye by mascerating inner bark in H2O.

White ash: Fruit resembles canoe paddle/ Wood hard and strong, used for tool handles/ leaf of white ash rubbed on a mosquito bite or bee sting relieves itching at once.

Black ash: Inferior in strength - used for baskets. If one pounds wood it separates into slats the thickness of an annual ring.

Flowering dogwood: Leaves turn bright scarlet in the Fall/ Ornamental and slow of growth/ From bark of smaller roots the Indians made red dye/ The  split ends of the small branchlets were used as a toothbrush/ at least 86 species of birds eat the fruit.

Buckeye: Seeds are poisonous to eat but when reduced to 'flour, seeds make good library paste which' keeps insect'from eating the books/ It is said that powdered seeds 'stirred into a pool will intoxicate fish and cause them to rise-'to the surface. This is a~survival technique.

Horse chestnut: An introduce species similar to the buckeye.

White Oak: One of the best hardwoods / Kernel of fruit is sweet and edible/ Slow, even growth - does well in open exposures/ Source of food for the gray squirrel which plants acorns at a time when they must be covered or die.

Swamp White Oak: Lateral branches have a tendency to persist, which results in knotty lumber/ Kernel of acorn is white, sweet, edible.

Burr oak: Kernel edible/ Slow growth/ Difficult to transplant

Black oak: Bark contains tannin for tanning skins and also a yellow dye used in colonial times/ Crowded out-can't stand competition/ Poor dry sites/ Wood
used largely for fuel/ kernel is yellow and bitter. -

Red oak: Kernel is white and bitter/ Grows rapidly/ Good street tree

Pin oak: Forms an oblong or pyramidal crown of many upright, spreading branches, the lowermost drooping nearly to the ground/ Kernel is bitter/ Grows fast and even/ An attractible tree for street or lawn/ Easy to transplant.

Shingle oak: Pioneers in the Ohio Valley made split shingles, or shakes from this tree. Today conifers used more frequently. (red cedar)

White poplar: Introduce / Difficult to kill-spreads by suckers

Cottonwood: The plains Indians used the root wood for starting fires by friction, but as firewood, it burns quickly without leaving a bed of coals/ Legend that the Indian discovered the design for the tepee by twisting a cottonwood leaf/ Very rapid of growth - can plant the twig.

Trembling aspen: Typical of burned-over areas where it commonly forms extensive pure stads/ Common characteristic of the "north country" trees/ Inner bark is the chosen food of the beaver/ short lived/ grouse eat the buds, snowshoe rabbits chew the twigs and bark.

Large soothe aspen: Similar to trembling aspen.

Lombardy poplar: Introduced from Europe/ Rapid of growth but short lived/ Grown as wind breakers and ornamental planting.

Osage orange: Because of the sharp thornes it makes and exclusive hedge when planted in rows and trimmed/ Large fruit not edible/ Bright orange wood is one of the heaviest timbers and source of bowstaves for the Indians/ The chips when boiled release a yellow dy.  Probably the best of woods for fence posts.

Hong locust: 12"-18" pods/Grows rapidly/ Long lived/ Tall hedge plant/ Flowers furnish nectar for honey bees/ Cattle like fruit/ Wood used for fence posts and RR ties.

Black locust: 3"-4" pods/ will grow almost anywhere/ short lived/ Rapid growth in youth/ subject to attacks of borers which kill or ruin wood for commercial use/ Spreads by underground shoots/ Blue dye from leaves/ seeds and leaves poisonous/ tree planted for soil erosion control

Prickly ash: Strong lemon odor when crush stem/ Visitor: Caterpiller of giant swallow tail butterfly which has the appearance of bird manure/ Bark contains an alkaloid used for toothaches.

White mulberry: Leaves are chief food of silkworm/ Tree introduced from Eastern Asia in colonial times hoping to start a silkworm industry here - but not economically possible/ Bark has yellowish tinge in furrows.

Black walnut: One of finest hardwoods - furniture and cabinets/ Now scarce/ Fruit husks contain dye. Fruit, a nut very tasty but rich.

Butternut: Of secondary value as timber/Husks and bark contain yellow dye/ The nut (as other walnuts and hickories) presents a design in cross section that might be used in arts and crafts as a basis for woodcraft items/ Cross sections make attractive buttons/ Pioneers pickled half grown fruits. Mature fruit edible as in case of black walnut.

Bitternut hickory: Thin-shelled nut like pecan/ Kernel bitter/grows most rapidly of all hickories/ Not easily transplanted because of long tap root,

Shagbark hickory: The wood is the number one firewood/ One of best commercial hickories/ Wood can withstand sudden shocks/ used for axe handles because of straight sturdy grain.

Basswood: Flowers often abundant withnectar/ A prominent botanist once lived on seagull eggs and basswood buds for several days/ One of commonest- hardwoods/ Wood soft for carving/ Gives bright short-lived campfire leaving ashes not coals/ Bark makes rope. One of our more valuable woods.