Coniferous Trees 🌲

Common Coniferous Trees List 🌲

Coniferous trees (from the Latin cone-bearing) and evergreens have cones and needles that stay on during the winter. List includes botanical names and ID details by trunk, bark, needle and leaf shapes.

The best known difference between coniferous trees and deciduous trees is whether their leaves “fall” or not. Like all good rules of thumb there are a few exceptions, called deciduous conifers. These have cones AND needles but shed them every year! Here’s some examples:

Tree	Type	Genus	Trunk & Bark	Leaf / Needle Shape	Identifying Features of Conifer Trees
Cedar trees	Coniferous	Cedrus	Grey trunk is multi-stemmed near the bottom.	Upright, ovoid cones, evergreen needles grow spirally.	Sun-loving coniferous trees with a broad canopy, hardly need any rain. Strongly scented wood, seed flight in September. Here’s a mnemonic (more mnemonics here…) to distinguish between the three most common Cedar trees found in British parks and gardens: Atlas; mostly Ascending branches. From the Atlas Mountains of North Africa Lebanon; mostly Level branches. From the Middle East Deodar; mostly Drooping branches. From the Himalayas.
Cinnamon trees	Coniferous	Cinnamomum	Grayish bark with reddish inner bark. Some varieties are stripped to produce cinnamon spice (as powder and sticks).	Elongated oval leaves (7–18 cm), reddish new leaves.	Ceylon cinnamon trees (Cinnamomum verum) grow between 10-15 m tall. In ancient Roman and today in India in buds are used as a spice.
Douglas Fir trees	Coniferous	Pseudotsuga	Bark coated with resin blisters.	Hanging cones (4-10 cm), green, soft needles standing individually.	Evergreen up to 60-100 m tall, maximum age 400-1400 years, blossom in the northern hemisphere: April-May.
Fir trees	Coniferous	Abies	Thin, silver-gray trunk.	Dull, soft needles with projecting cones.	Firs are coniferous trees which grow up to 80 metres tall in forests often growing in mountain slopes. Fir cones stand like candles and don’t drop to the ground, only the scales do.
Juniper trees	Coniferous	Juniperus	Juniper trunks make good fence posts and firewood.	Juniper leaves can have needle like or scale-like leaves (or both) with berry-like round soft fleshy cones.	Junipers are coniferous shrubs and trees can grow up to 40 metres tall which grow up. Juniper berries are the primary flavoring in gin (from the Dutch word jenever) and as a culinary spice or berry sauce for game dishes. Juniper wood is strong and flexible and a traditional choice by some Native American cultures for hunting bows.
Larch trees	Coniferous*	Larix	Straight trunk with horizontal branches.	Needles in small bunches with small, spherical standing cones.	Larch trees are coniferous trees which grow 35-40 metres tall. They are only green in summer. From October golden-yellow needles which are later discarded, which is unusual for conifer trees. Larch trees often grow in mountains.
Pine trees	Coniferous	Pinus	Tall, slim trunk with brown, fissured bark.	Soft needles grow in pairs or in clumps, strong, shiny cone.	Pines are coniferous trees which grow between 12-20 metres high with pyramid-shaped crowns (reminiscent of giant broccoli), they’re fragrant trees mostly standing alone. Fruit: pine nuts.
Scots Pine trees	Coniferous	Pinus sylvestris	Twisted trunk with lengthy cracked, reddish bark.	Prickly needles grow in pairs, 40-60 mm long.	Scots Pine coniferous trees are knotty evergreen trees with ovoid cones hanging with hard scales, with older umbrella-shaped tops.
Spruce trees	Coniferous	Picea	Spruce trees have a reddish gray trunk with scaly bark.	Pointed prickly needles, 10-30 mm long	Spuce coniferous trees are evergreen trees which grow hat-shaped to between 30-50 m with pointed tops and elongated hanging cones that fall as a whole.
Yew trees	Coniferous	Taxus	Yew trees are often multi-stemmed with reddish bark.	Soft, pliable, dark green needles on horizontal branches.	Small trees (10-20 m) with a rounded crown, often grown as a shrub esp. in churchyards. Red, bell-shaped fruit from September. Almost everything on a yew tree is toxic.

Lists related to Coniferous trees: Deciduous Trees…

* This conifer tree is a deciduous conifer tree which are unusual because, despite being conifer trees, they drop their needles and cones every year – like deciduous trees. This makes it harder to tell if they are coniferous trees or deciduous trees.

Lists Related to Coniferous Trees:

• A-Z List of Trees by Common names…
• Help improve List Lovers list by adding any conifer trees you think we should add below…