As part of our ambition to help HRM citizens connect with their trees, we are featuring a tree species per week in this 2020 blog. The species have been chosen to represent the most abundant species in the streets of the Centre-Plan area (i.e., Halifax Peninsula plus Dartmouth inside the Circumferential) - some of these we know from our inventory studies, others from the records of recent plantings under the HRM Urban Forest Master Plan.

Once you have read a species entry here, we encourage you to ask questions and put them to us at our email address: halifaxtreeproject@gmail.com. If you have ideas as to what additional information about each species you would find useful for us to include, by all means let us know.

Regarding sources of information, our group at Halifax Tree Project has, collectively, a considerable store of knowledge accumulated through reading, researching, writing, observing, and discussing. Online you can find vast amounts of information about each of the species we cover. We use a standard reference text called “Trees in Canada” by John Laird Farrar - the latest edition is 2017. It is available for purchase online for about $60. If you don’t yet own any tree-identification books but wish you did, we strongly encourage you to start with Farrar’s book. Let’s start!

Note: sometimes the easiest way for us to guide you to interesting examples of street-tree species is using civic addresses. Please respect home-owner privacy if you venture past their premises to observe the trees we point out.

 
norway 5.jpg
1. The Norway maple
AE5.jpg
2. The american elm
2.jpg
3. the little-leaf linden
 
red oak 2.jpg
4. the red oak
 
2.jpg
7. the green ash
 
SyringaOnCompton_01.jpg
10. japanese tree lilac
 
blacklocust.jpg
13. The black locust
 
5.jpg
16. the black walnut
 
4.jpg
19. the london plane
4.jpg
5. the silver maple
 
3.jpg
8. the pin oak
 
3.jpg
11. the sugar maple
 
12.jpg
14. the basswood
 
TulipTree_KingsCollege.jpg
17. THE TULIP TREE
 
6.jpg
20. The Freeman Maple
serviceberry4.jpg
6. the serviceberry
 
Kings_Ginkgo_04.JPG
9. the ginkgo
 
2.jpg
12. the european beech
 
RedMaple1.jpg
15. the red maple
 
3.jpg
18. the hackberry