The 15 Most Iconic Trees Native to Missouri

dogwood in full bloom
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Written by Arlene Mckanic

Updated: October 8, 2023

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Many trees are native to the state of Missouri. They thrive in the state’s fertile soil, good amount of rainfall, and hardiness zones. These zones range from Zone 5b in the northern part of the state to Zone 7a in the southern part. Here is a list of 15 beautiful and iconic trees native to Missouri.

An overview of 15 iconic trees that are native to Missouri.

Flowering Dogwood

flowering dogwood

The flowering dogwood is the state tree of Missouri.

The flowering dogwood is Missouri’s state tree. Its scientific name, Cornus florida, refers not to the state of Florida, but to the tree’s flowering habit. This beautiful spring-blossoming tree stands between 25 and 40 feet tall, has a spreading crown, and beautiful gray bark with a pleasingly rough texture. The leaves are oval, have a waxy texture, and turn red in the fall. The flowers are actually tiny and found in the center of four white or pink bracts that look like flowers. In good years, these “flowers” crowd out the tree’s leaves. Flowering dogwood isn’t fussy about the soil it’s grown in and likes to grow in partial shade.

Oaks

All of the 500 species of oak tree come from the Northern Hemisphere, and most are native to North America. They are prized for their beauty, the shade they provide, and their timber. Some species of oak tree can live hundreds of years and are passed down in families like heirlooms. The following are native to Missouri and other eastern and central states.

Northern Red Oak

red oak (Quercus rubra)

This beautiful tree that’s native to Missouri can live for 400 years.

The northern red oak usually grows to about 92 feet in height, though it can grow much taller. It’s a fast-growing tree that can live as long as 400 years and has attractive, scaly bark with striped ridges that grow to the bottom of the trunk. Its leaves are 5 to 10 inches long, oblong with seven to nine lobes. They emerge when the sun is up for 13 hours, whether the air is warm or still cold. They turn a beautiful red or brownish red in the fall.

Bur Oak

Bur Oak

The fringed caps on the large acorns of the bur oak give it the name of mossycup oak.

The bur oak is famous for having the biggest acorns of any oak tree native to North America. This is where it gets its scientific name of Quercus macrocarpa, as macrocarpa means “large fruit” in Ancient Greek. It usually grows as high as 98 feet, though it can grow to 160 feet, and is famous for having a trunk with a wide girth. Some old bur oaks have trunks that are 10 feet around. It’s usually a slow-growing tree that only grows about a foot a year, but it can live as long as 400 years. The acorns that give it its scientific name are 1 to 2 inches long with a large cup that can cover most of the nut. Sometimes the cup has a fringe that gives the tree its other name of mossycup oak. The gray bark sports attractive ridges.

Swamp White Oak

Swamp White Oak, Washington Park Arboretum, Portland, Oregon

The autumn leaves of this swamp white oak are turning gold.

One of the most iconic trees in Missouri is a bur oak called The Big Tree. It’s found in Boone County and is the largest bur oak in the country. It’s almost 400 years old, 89 feet high, with a 130-foot crown, and a trunk with a 7.5-foot girth.

The swamp white oak is a bit smaller and less long-lived than the other oaks mentioned. It usually grows between 60 and 80 feet tall and lives about 300 years. It often hybridizes with the bur oak if they’re close together.

The tree has oval-shaped leaves with 10 to 14 lobes, five to seven on each side, and its bark is ridged like that of the white oak. In fall the leaves can turn gold, reddish or brownish, but they’re not as spectacular as the autumn foliage of other oaks. The swamp white oak gets its name because it’s often found in wet but not permanently flooded soils and near bodies of water. Its acorns are enjoyed by wildlife such as deer, squirrels, and waterfowl when they drop in the autumn.

White Oak

White Oak

The leaves of the white oak are especially beautiful when they first emerge in spring.

The white oak gets its name not because of the color of its bark, which is light gray, but the color of its lumber. This magnificent tree has a round crown and can grow to 100 feet tall. Its circumference can be just as impressive. The white oak lives between 200 and 300 years, though some have lived over half a millennium. In spring the emerging leaves are known for their unusual beauty and are described by some as opalescent. They grow into dark green, glossy leaves that are between 5 and 8.5 inches long with lobes that can be deep or shallow. They turn red or purple in the fall and may cling to the tree until the next spring.

Black Cherry

Fruit Tree, Abundance, Autumn, Bird, Bizarre

Birds love the fruit of this tree which is native to Missouri.

The black cherry is a tree that grows between 49 and 79 feet tall, though it can also be a shrub. It has oval, shiny leaves and racemes of small, frothy, white flowers in spring. The tree is named for the reddish-black cherries that follow. These cherries are eaten by birds. If you snap a twig and sniff it, it gives off a fragrance like almonds. This means the tree has a good number of cyanogenic glycosides. Though they’re safe for birds, the cherries and leaves are toxic to mammals.

You can tell whether a tree is young or mature not just by its height but by its bark. A young tree has smooth, banded bark while the bark of an older tree is rough and ranges in color from dark gray to black. In autumn, the bright green leaves turn a beautiful orange or red color.

Black Walnut

fall black walnut tree landscape

The black walnut is beautiful but can take as long as 20 years to produce a good crop of nuts.

If really you want to grow your own walnuts, make sure you don’t plant the black walnut tree near anything else. The tree, though pretty and a producer of delicious nuts, is toxic to most plants that grow around it. Like many fruit and nut trees, it needs some chilling to bear fruit. The walnut needs between 400 and 1500 hours of chilling.

The tree grows to be 100 to 130 feet tall, its bark is grayish black, and its ridges are arranged in diamond patterns. The compound leaves are 1 to 2 feet long, pinnate, dark green, saw-toothed, and with a pointed tip. The tree takes a while to produce quality walnuts. It’ll start bearing after three to five years but needs 20 years to really get up to speed. The tree needs full sun and rich, loamy soil with a pH between 5.5 and 7.0. Gardening experts recommend that the tree not be fertilized in its first year. After that, apply rotted manure or compost around the roots. When your walnut tree is 10 years old, drill some bar holes around the roots and sprinkle in about half a pound of boron. This promotes nut production.

American Linden

basswood tree in sun

The beautiful American linden is fast growing but slow to reach maturity.

This native tree, Tilia americana is the only member of its genus found in the entire Western Hemisphere. It’s also called the basswood. The tree usually grows to between 60 and 120 feet tall with a trunk that’s 3 to 5 feet around. It is a very fast-growing tree and is said to grow faster than any other hardwood in North America. Still, it takes a while to mature. The earliest age for the linden to start producing flowers and seeds is 15 years, though it can be a century before this tree is ready to reproduce.

The American linden has a beautiful domed habit, with toothed, pointed, oval leaves that can be up to 9 inches long. The flowers are yellowish white and arrive with the summer. They’re fragrant and clustered together at the end of a stalk. The stalk also bears a bract that helps scatter the pollen, and the flowers attract pollinators like bees. Since it takes 14.5 hours of sunlight for flowers to appear, Missouri’s location is just the thing for the American linden. The nutlet is hard, downy, smallish, and eaten by rodents. The bark is gray or light brown and fissured. You may need to protect a young linden, for rabbits like to eat the bark, sometimes to the point where they girdle the tree and kill it.

Eastern Cottonwood

Eastern cottonwood tree in a forest seen upwards against a blue sky

The eastern cottonwood has delicate green leaves and deeply fissured bark.

Also called the necklace poplar, this tree grows between 65 and 100 feet tall, with a trunk that can be over 9 feet around. When it’s young its bark is smooth and silver-white but grows deeply fissured as the tree ages. It gets its scientific name, Populus deltoides, from the shape of its leaves. Its leaves are triangular, especially when the tree is young. The flowers come in catkins, with male catkins dense and maroon and female catkins longer and green. Samaras come in early summer, and when they split open, they give the tree its common name of cottonwood. The seeds that come from the samara are attached to filaments that look like cotton and allow them to be taken away on the breeze. There can be as many as 40 million seeds in one season.

In the wild, the eastern cottonwood usually grows near rivers and in full sun. In your yard, it does well in soil that’s kept fertile, cool, and well-aerated. Relatively fast growing, it should reach its full height in about 20 years. Eastern cottonwoods usually live between 70 and 100 years, but there was at least one that lived to be 316.

Maples

These beautiful trees are native to Europe, Asia, and North America, and the ones discussed are native to the Central and Eastern United States, including Missouri. Nearly all maples have diagnostic palmate leaves and winged fruits called samaras. These samaras are usually light enough to be carried away by the wind. Most maple trees lose their leaves in the winter, and some species are prized for their spectacular fall foliage.

Silver Maple

silver maple leaves

The leaves of this maple are green on top but silvery underneath.

This maple is a fast-growing tree that usually grows between 49 and 82 feet tall, though as with many trees, there are individuals that are much taller. It usually has a 36 to 49-foot spread and is found in the wild near bodies of water. This gives it its other names of water maple, swamp maple, or creek maple. Its leaves, which are palmate like most others in the Acer genus, are green on top but silvery on the bottom. Even gentle breezes lift the leaves to expose this beautiful color. Though the fall color of the silver maple isn’t spectacular, the leaves usually turn a pleasing lemon-yellow color.

This maple flowers in spring and the flowers give way to the trademark winged samara. Each samara has one seed, and the seeds are heavier than those of other types of maples. This is probably why the silver maple likes to grow close to water. If the samara is too heavy to be borne on the wind, it can drop into a body of water and float away. Silver maples are sexually mature when they’re 11 years old. The tree can be male or female, have both sexes or change sexes from time to time.

Sugar Maple

Acer saccharum sugar maple tree changing color in Fall

In the fall some parts of the sugar maple change color, while other parts stay green.

Though most people associate sugar maples with New England, they’re also native to Missouri. Prized for their maple syrup and beautiful wood, sugar maples grow between 80 and 115 feet tall, though some have grown to 150 feet. It has the maple’s usual palmate leaves, and its fall color is truly sensational. Some trees are brilliant butter yellow, others are sizzling orange-red, while still others have both colors. Sometimes, one part of the tree wears its fall foliage while the other part remains green.

Sugar maples are mature when they’re about 30 years old and can live to be 300. Missouri is the southwestern edge of the tree’s range, and it can get cold enough in the winters there for the tree’s seeds to germinate and for trees to produce syrup. Besides that, the tree is grown for its beauty, shade, and soil tolerance, and its ability to improve the soil around it.

Eastern Red Cedar

eastern red cedar

Cedar waxwings adore the blueberries of the eastern red cedar.

This tough conifer, which is not a cedar but a juniper, can thrive in many types of soil. If the soil is poor, it will probably not grow much higher than a shrub even though it can live for over 900 years. As it is it’s a medium-sized tree that grows between 16 and 66 feet tall. Its trunk is short, and it’s noteworthy for its bark, which is red-brown, fragrant, and peels.

The eastern red cedar has two kinds of leaves. When it’s young its leaves are sharp and needlelike, and when it’s mature the leaves are scalelike and overlap. However, some adult trees retain juvenile leaves. The seed cones look like purplish-blue berries, and since they take from six to eight months to mature birds eat them during the winter. Cedar waxwings are especially fond of them. The pollen cones shed clouds of pollen in the earliest spring. Eastern red cedar trees usually have two sexes.

The wood of the eastern red cedar is so durable that it can be used for fence posts without much treatment. The wood is also used to make clothing chests since moths are repelled by the smell, and it was also used to make pencils. In Missouri, the eastern red cedar is often brought into the house and used as a Christmas tree.

American Persimmon

Persimmon tree in autumn

Persimmon tree in autumn.

Though related to the ebony trees that evolved in the tropics, the American persimmon is native to the Central and Southern United States, including the southern and central parts of Missouri. The persimmon grows from 30 to 80 feet tall and grows taller when it’s found west of the lower Mississippi River. The leaves are oval-shaped and about 4 to 6 inches long, the trunk is slender, dark gray or brown, and attractively scaly.

Most persimmon trees are dioicous, which means there are male trees and female trees, basically. If you want fruit, you’ll need to plant a male and a female tree in humus-heavy, well-drained soil. The flowers appear in late spring and are irresistible to pollinators, especially bumblebees. Male flowers appear in clusters, while female flowers are solitary. Eventually, green fruit appears on the female tree. It’s notoriously astringent when it’s not completely ripe. When the fruit ripens after a frost, its sweet juiciness is unparalleled.

Tulip Tree

Tulip poplars in bloom

The beautiful flowers of this tree native to Missouri remind people of tulips.

The tulip tree is the tallest deciduous tree in the United States. This tree can grow taller than 150 feet, but its other selling point is the beauty of its flowers. Large and yellow-green with a bit of orange at the base, they appear in the summer well after the uniquely shaped leaves that make the tree easily identifiable. They also have a scent of cucumbers. The one drawback is that the tree won’t start flowering until it’s 15 years old. Samaras appear after the flowers, and the leaves turn bright yellow in the fall.

Tulip trees are also of ancient lineage, and there are fossils from the Late Cretaceous period, which was about 99.7 million years ago. They grow taller when they need to compete for sunlight, and they thrive in soil that’s fertile, a touch acidic, and well-draining. The wood of the tulip tree is used for boats and furniture, including dugout canoes. Though it’s a host plant for certain caterpillars, it’s a tough tree that’s not bothered by diseases or parasites.

American Sycamore

900 year old sycamore tree of love. Telavi Georgia.

Sycamore tree

Also called the buttonwood, this long-lived native tree is found in all of Missouri’s hardiness zones. Like the tulip tree, the American sycamore can grow very tall, between 130 and 165 feet, with a trunk that can be as much as 10 feet in diameter. It’s prized in parks and gardens for its bark, which is grayish brown but peels and flakes off to reveal lighter, red-tinged bark beneath. The leaves are palmate, 4 to 9 inches long and have three to five lobes. The middle lobe is wider than it is long. The tree doesn’t present much fall color, and when the cool weather comes the leaves just turn brown, dry out, and fall. The tree has both male and female flowers that give way to the brown balls that last throughout the winter.

The American sycamore is often found in floodplains and likes wet soil, though it can’t tolerate floods that last longer than two weeks. In a garden or park, it prefers coolish soils that are more alkaline than acidic. Sycamores can live as long as 600 years, and in old trees, the heartwood sometimes rots out. The cavities left behind can be large enough for bear’s dens but are usually homes for smaller animals such as birds and bats.

Summary of the 15 Most Iconic Trees Native to Missouri

Tree
1Flowering Dogwood
2Northern Red Oak
3Bur Oak
4Swamp White Oak
5White Oak
6Black Cherry
7Black Walnut
8America Linden
9Eastern Cottonwood
10Silver Maple
11Sugar Maple
12Eastern Red Cedar
13American Persimmon
14Tulip Tree
15American Sycamore


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About the Author

Arlene Mckanic

Arlene Mckanic is a writer for A-Z Animals whose focus is on plants and animals of all kinds, from ants to elephants. She has a Bachelor's Degree from City College of New York. A resident of South Carolina, she loves gardening and though she doesn't have pets, a black racer snake does live in her kitchen.

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