Okay, I know all of my readers are some form of tree-hugger, so can you name this tree just by its leaf?

If you said “Maple,” please turn in your Birkenstocks and re-usable organic granola canister as you leave. You are officially out of the Tree-Hugger club.

That, my friends, is the leaf of an American Sycamore.  Next time we hold a quiz, you’ll want to have the Leafsnap iPhone app at the ready.

Leafsnap, developed by Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, is an electronic field guide that lets you identify trees along your trail just by taking a photo. You can then keep a collection of the ones you’ve seen, and even help them expand their database.

Sounds kinda geeky, I know, but you’ll be surprised at how interesting nature becomes when you actually know something about it and can interact in an intuitive way.  Rather than memorizing leaves by rote for your botany class, you can ID the dogwood in your front yard, or figure out which trees to revisit when they fruit later in the summer.

I also really dig the astronomy apps for smart phones.  It’s surprisingly cool to look up at the night sky and identify stars and constellations the way people did a few thousand years ago.  Well, same constellations, but they didn’t “have an app for that.”  You get the idea.

Can't get enough? Try these related posts:

1. Visualize your career as a tree
2. Growing trees in the desert