No one can say with certainty how many different types of deciduous trees there are worldwide: in the northern hemisphere alone there are several hundred different ones. The greatest diversity is found in the tropical and subtropical rainforests, where many tree species still await discovery.
How are deciduous trees characterized?
Deciduous trees are covered-seeded plants with over 60 families, broad leaves and a variety of fruits. They can be deciduous or evergreen and bloom usually in spring. Growth heights vary greatly, and their lifespan ranges from 120 years to several thousand years.
The most important things in brief
- Botanical classification: angiosperms
- Families: over 60 different
- Leaves: both summer and evergreen, very different shapes
- Flowers: unisexual or bisexual, pollination by wind or insects
- Flowering time: usually in spring between April and June
- Fruits: both individual and collected fruits as well as flying fruits
- Growth habit: single or multi-stemmed, with short or long trunks
- Growth height: smaller deciduous trees between eight and ten meters, many German forest trees around 50 meters, American coast redwood up to 110 meters
- Lifespan: very variable, birch and ash trees only around 120 years, many typical forest trees several hundred to even 1000 years, coastal redwood several thousand years
- Occurrence and distribution: Deciduous trees grow almost everywhere, except Antarctica, Arctic, dry deserts
What distinguishes the deciduous tree from the conifer?
The most obvious difference between deciduous and coniferous trees is the shape of their leaves: conifers develop needle-shaped foliage, while the leaves of deciduous trees are more or less wide and have veins running through them. However, no distinction can be made between deciduous deciduous trees and evergreen conifers, as there are also evergreen deciduous trees and needle-shedding conifers. Instead, the two groups can be divided by the shape and type of their fruits, since the seeds of deciduous trees are always enclosed in a fruit. For this reason, deciduous trees are classified as angiosperms, while conifers are classified as gymnosperms. By the way, conifers are significantly older in terms of evolutionary history: they have been around since the end of the coal age. Deciduous trees, on the other hand, only appeared about a hundred million years later.
Which deciduous trees are deciduous and which are evergreen?
Summer greens, i.e. H. deciduous, native deciduous trees:
- Maple (Acer)
- Birch (Betula)
- Beech (Fagus)
- Hornbeam (Carpinus)
- Oak (Quercus)
- Alder (Alnus)
- Ash (Fraxinus)
- Whiteberries such as spar and mountain ash (Sorbus)
- Poplar (Populus)
- Horse Chestnut (Aesculus)
- Elm (Ulmus)
- Willow (Salix)
- Linde (Tilia)
- Fruit trees (Malus, Prunus etc.)
Evergreen, native deciduous trees (i.e. not deciduous)
- European holly (Ilex aquifolium)
- Common boxwood (Buxus sempervirens)
- True laurel (Laurus nobilis)
Tip
Palm trees are not considered trees because their trunk does not grow thick.