I’m pretty good at identifying western Pennsylvania’s deciduous trees because I live with them, but evergreens aren’t common here and they confuse me.

After I flunked the spruce-fir-hemlock test in Newfoundland in July I vowed to learn from that experience and do better last month in Maine.  I updated my conifer “cheat sheet” and memorized the difference between balsam firs and hemlocks.

Conifers are still confusing but I’m doing better.  I got a B- in Maine.

How do you tell the difference between pines, spruces, firs and hemlocks?
Learn from my conifer cheat sheet: In A Coniferous State.

 (photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)