All 50 US state trees, from live oaks to giant sequoias

State trees are a snapshot of American forestry. The list runs from Alaska's Sitka Spruce, which grows on the wettest coastal rainforest in the country, down to Florida's Sabal Palm, which lives in salt spray and hurricane wind. Half the states pick a conifer. A dozen pick an oak. Four picked the same sugar maple. This guide covers all 50 official trees, adoption dates, native range, and why each legislature chose the species it did.

The complete list of 50 state trees

State	Official tree	Adopted
Alabama	Southern Longleaf Pine	1949 (revised 1997)
Alaska	Sitka Spruce	1962
Arizona	Palo Verde	1954
Arkansas	Pine (Loblolly and Shortleaf)	1939
California	Redwood (Coast and Giant)	1937 / 1953
Colorado	Colorado Blue Spruce	1939
Connecticut	White Oak	1947
Delaware	American Holly	1939
Florida	Sabal Palm	1953
Georgia	Live Oak	1937
Hawaii	Kukui (Candlenut)	1959
Idaho	Western White Pine	1935
Illinois	White Oak	1973
Indiana	Tulip Tree	1931
Iowa	Oak (Bur, Red, White)	1961
Kansas	Eastern Cottonwood	1937
Kentucky	Tulip Poplar	1994
Louisiana	Bald Cypress	1963
Maine	Eastern White Pine	1945
Maryland	White Oak (Wye Oak)	1941
Massachusetts	American Elm	1941
Michigan	Eastern White Pine	1955
Minnesota	Red Pine (Norway Pine)	1953
Mississippi	Magnolia	1938
Missouri	Flowering Dogwood	1955
Montana	Ponderosa Pine	1949
Nebraska	Eastern Cottonwood	1972
Nevada	Single-leaf Pinyon and Bristlecone	1953 / 1987
New Hampshire	White Birch (Paper Birch)	1947
New Jersey	Northern Red Oak	1950
New Mexico	Pinyon Pine	1949
New York	Sugar Maple	1956
North Carolina	Pine (Longleaf)	1963
North Dakota	American Elm	1947
Ohio	Ohio Buckeye	1953
Oklahoma	Redbud	1937
Oregon	Douglas Fir	1939
Pennsylvania	Eastern Hemlock	1931
Rhode Island	Red Maple	1964
South Carolina	Sabal Palmetto	1939
South Dakota	Black Hills Spruce	1947
Tennessee	Tulip Poplar	1947
Texas	Pecan	1919
Utah	Quaking Aspen	2014
Vermont	Sugar Maple	1949
Virginia	American Dogwood	1956
Washington	Western Hemlock	1947
West Virginia	Sugar Maple	1949
Wisconsin	Sugar Maple	1949
Wyoming	Plains Cottonwood	1947

The most-shared trees, and the ones nobody else picked

Nine of the fifty state trees are pines, which makes Pinus the most-represented genus by a wide margin. Oaks come next: five states (Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey) picked some form of oak, and Georgia rounds it out with the Live Oak. Sugar Maple is the single most-shared species, claimed by New York, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. These four states account for most of the country's maple syrup production, and the tree's autumn color is the calling card of a Northeast fall. Two states share the American Elm (Massachusetts, North Dakota), a curious pick given that Dutch elm disease had already begun devastating the species by the time both designations were made in 1941 and 1947. Two states share the Eastern White Pine, two share the Tulip Poplar, and both Kansas and Nebraska picked the Eastern Cottonwood, the tough riparian tree that lines the Great Plains creeks.

Some picks are geographic loners. Louisiana's Bald Cypress, the knee-rooted swamp tree of the bayou, is not shared. Neither is Hawaii's Kukui, brought by Polynesian voyagers around 1,000 years ago and used for oil lamps long before statehood. Delaware's American Holly is a coastal understory species, chosen partly because Delaware once led the country in Christmas holly production. Oklahoma's Redbud, adopted in 1937, blooms magenta in April along Route 66. Utah swapped its old state tree, the Colorado Blue Spruce, for the Quaking Aspen in 2014 after schoolchildren noted the Blue Spruce was really Colorado's tree. The Quaking Aspen forms Pando in Utah's Fishlake National Forest, a single clonal organism covering 106 acres and estimated at 80,000 tons, arguably the largest living organism on Earth.

Conifers of the West, hardwoods of the East

The state tree map splits cleanly along the 100th meridian. Almost every western state picked a conifer: Alaska's Sitka Spruce, Idaho's Western White Pine, Montana's Ponderosa Pine, Oregon's Douglas Fir, Washington's Western Hemlock, Nevada's Single-leaf Pinyon, New Mexico's Pinyon, Colorado's Blue Spruce, California's Redwood, South Dakota's Black Hills Spruce. The eastern half of the country favored hardwoods. Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee picked the Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), a fast-growing hardwood that reaches 190 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains. Missouri and Virginia picked the Flowering Dogwood and American Dogwood, the small understory tree with white spring bracts that carpets Appalachian forests in April. Mississippi picked the Magnolia, a heavy-fragrance evergreen that also gave the state its nickname.

Two Southern states share what looks like the same palm. Florida picked the Sabal Palm and South Carolina picked the Sabal Palmetto, but both are Sabal palmetto, the same species. South Carolina's is on its flag, a memorial to the palmetto-log Fort Moultrie that absorbed British cannonballs during the Revolutionary War. The Southern Longleaf Pine, once covering 90 million acres of the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas, is Alabama's state tree and North Carolina's as well (North Carolina's designation just says "Pine" but was clarified in 2003 to mean the Longleaf). By some counts under 3 million acres of Longleaf remain today, and restoration is an active conservation project across the whole Southeast.

Superlatives: tallest, oldest, most useful

California's Coast Redwood holds the tallest tree record. The individual named Hyperion in Redwood National Park was measured at 380.3 feet in 2006. The Giant Sequoia, also covered by California's redwood designation, is the largest tree by volume. General Sherman in Sequoia National Park has an estimated trunk volume of 52,508 cubic feet. Nevada's Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, added as a co-state-tree in 1987 alongside the Single-leaf Pinyon, is the oldest non-clonal organism on the planet. Methuselah, in the White Mountains, was dated at over 4,850 years old.

Texas's Pecan, adopted in 1919, is the oldest state tree designation and the only one that produces a commercial nut crop at scale. Georgia leads national pecan production, Texas is second, and New Mexico's Mesilla Valley is third. Ohio's Buckeye gave the state its people's nickname (Buckeyes) long before the football program, and the smooth brown seeds were carried as good-luck charms. Missouri's Flowering Dogwood was the country's most widely planted ornamental tree in the 1960s until anthracnose fungus began killing eastern populations in the 1980s. Vermont, New York, West Virginia and Wisconsin's shared Sugar Maple produces roughly 4.5 million gallons of syrup a year in the US, with Vermont alone accounting for close to half.

How to remember them

The fastest way to learn all 50 is to cluster by region. The Pacific coast is Douglas Fir (Oregon), Western Hemlock (Washington), Sitka Spruce (Alaska), Redwood (California). The Great Plains gets Cottonwood twice (Kansas, Nebraska) plus Wyoming's Plains Cottonwood. The Southeast is oaks and palms: Live Oak in Georgia, Sabal in Florida and South Carolina, Longleaf Pine in Alabama and North Carolina, Magnolia in Mississippi, Bald Cypress in Louisiana. The Northeast is white pines and sugar maples with a couple of oaks in the mix. The Mountain West is spruces and pinyons. Once you have the regional buckets, the outliers (Utah's Aspen, Hawaii's Kukui, Delaware's Holly, Oklahoma's Redbud) are the ones worth flashcarding.

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