Tree Care Apps & Tools

Tree ID

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Tree Care Apps & Tools Tree ID
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Tree Care Tool

Tree Species ID and Value Wizard

Narrow your tree down by needle, cone and bark, then appraise it with the ISA trunk formula — the same method insurers and courts use.

6 screens, about a minute Nothing you type leaves this page How it works

Rates and bands last reviewed October 2026 · coastal San Luis Obispo County market rates

Terms of use, and the limits of these tools — please read before you rely on a figure

In short: these are estimates and general information, not quotes, appraisals or advice. Prices here can be higher or lower than Cambria Pines Tree Service Inc. or anyone else would charge, and ticking the box on the first screen means you accept the terms. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Read all 13 terms in full →

Tick the box above to begin — 11 screens, about a minute, one question at a time.

Step 1 of 11

What does the foliage look like

How to answer this

Look at one twig rather than at the whole tree. Whether the foliage is a needle, a scale or a broad leaf — and how it joins the twig — removes most of the possibilities at once.

What does the foliage look like?

Before you answer
  • Pines and firs carry true needles; cypress and cedar carry scale-like sprays that read as flat foliage but are not leaves at all.
  • Needles joined at the base in a papery sheath are in a bundle, and that bundle count is the single most useful number in the key.
  • Single needles all around the twig rule out every pine on this coast and put you into fir territory.
  • The coastal look-alikes are separated here: Monterey pine and Bishop pine both carry bundles of two or three.

Step 2 of 11

How is it arranged

How to answer this

Look at one twig rather than at the whole tree. Whether the foliage is a needle, a scale or a broad leaf — and how it joins the twig — removes most of the possibilities at once.

How is it arranged?

Step 3 of 11

What is the fruit or seed

How to answer this

Cones and fruit stay on the tree all year, which makes them more reliable than foliage. Look on the branch first and on the ground second.

What is the fruit or seed?

Before you answer
  • Bishop pine holds its cones closed on the branch for years while Monterey pine opens and drops them — that one habit separates the two coastal pines.
  • An acorn makes it an oak, and on this coast that almost always means coast live oak or blue oak.
  • A fleshy berry rules the conifers out entirely and points at madrone, pepper or olive.
  • Winged seed or a spiky ball means a hardwood rather than a conifer, where sycamore and sweetgum live.

Step 4 of 11

What is the bark doing

How to answer this

Read the bark at chest height on the trunk, not on a branch, where young wood looks like something else entirely. Touch it if it is safe to.

What is the bark doing?

Before you answer
  • Madrone peels in thin red curls over smooth pale wood — once seen on this coast, never confused with anything else.
  • Deep dark furrows on a coastal tree usually mean a mature pine, while thick corky ridges point at Douglas-fir.
  • Red fibrous bark with no resin smell is redwood, which keeps it out of the pine group however tall it stands.

Step 5 of 11

What is the overall shape

How to answer this

Stand back far enough to see the whole crown. Shape is a weaker clue than the foliage, so read it as confirmation rather than as the thing that makes the match.

What is the overall shape?

Before you answer
  • A tall narrow spire is the conifer default and a broad rounded crown is the hardwood default.
  • A flat-topped spreading crown that leans away from the sea is the classic coastal cypress silhouette.
  • A weeping crown of fine foliage on this coast is usually a California pepper or a willow.

Step 6 of 11

Trunk diameter

How to answer this

Only needed for the value estimate.

in. Only needed for the value estimate.

Before you answer
  • Cross-section is pi times the radius squared, so an 18 in. trunk is 254 sq in. of wood and a 36 in. trunk is four times that.
  • Condition runs from 0.2 for a mostly dead tree to 1.0 for a full healthy crown, and it is the factor homeowners most often disagree with.
  • A specimen in a front garden scores about twice what the same tree scores in a back field.
  • We confirm the species and the condition on site before any figure is relied on.

Step 7 of 11

What condition is the tree in

How to answer this

These three answers do not change what the tree is; they decide what it is worth. The valuation uses the trunk cross-section, the condition of the crown and how prominent the position is.

What condition is the tree in?

Step 8 of 11

Where does it stand

How to answer this

These three answers do not change what the tree is; they decide what it is worth. The valuation uses the trunk cross-section, the condition of the crown and how prominent the position is.

Where does it stand?

Step 9 of 11

How does the tree sit in the property

How to answer this

These three answers do not change what the tree is; they decide what it is worth. Two of them are about the property and one is about the tree — and the tool will show its working on each.

How does the tree sit in the property?

Before you answer
  • A landmark tree is the one a neighbour describes the street by. It cannot be replaced at that size for any money, which is what makes it worth something.
  • A blocked ocean or valley view is the largest single negative a coastal tree can carry, and it is the one an owner can usually do something about.
  • The property value is optional and only turns a percentage into a dollar figure. Leave it at 0 and the range is still shown.
  • Two more figures come out of this screen: what the wood is worth to a mill, and what the tree adds to, or costs, the property.

Step 10 of 11

What does it do for the view

How to answer this

These three answers do not change what the tree is; they decide what it is worth. Two of them are about the property and one is about the tree — and the tool will show its working on each.

What does it do for the view?

Step 11 of 11

Roughly what is the property worth

How to answer this

Optional. Used only to turn the percentage into a dollar figure — leave it at 0 to see the range as a percentage.

$ Optional. Used only to turn the percentage into a dollar figure — leave it at 0 to see the range as a percentage.

Your answer

What this tree is

How to read this

The closest match in the key, everything the key still cannot separate, and an indicative replacement value with the arithmetic shown line by line.

Go deeper

What the wood is worth, and what it adds to the property

What the wood is worth

Timber value and landscape value are two different numbers for two different purposes, and on a residential coast lot the timber figure is usually the smaller one by a long way.

Two numbers, two purposes
The landscape appraisal above is the cost to replace that tree at that size and quality — the figure an insurer, a court or a neighbour dispute uses. Timber value is what somebody would pay for the wood, which answers a different question entirely.
A yard tree is often unsaleable
A mill will not take a tree with metal in it, and a residential tree has usually swallowed a fence staple, a nail, a cable or a tap. Metal ruins a saw blade, and one blade costs more than the log is worth.
Grade is decided by the butt log
Diameter, straightness, knots and defect at the bottom sixteen feet decide most of the value. A tree can be sixty feet tall and still be worth nothing if its first log forks.
The merchantable length is short
Only the straight, sound length below the first major fork counts, and the logger's own costs — felling, skidding, trucking, milling — come off before anyone is paid.
The volume rule's assumptions
The figure below counts sixteen-foot logs, a taper per log, sound wood to the merchantable height, and the Doyle log rule, which is the conservative one. Change any of those assumptions and the answer changes with them.

What it adds to a property

These are the general market observations buyers, agents and appraisers actually work from on the California coast. They are context, not an appraisal, and none of them is a promise about any particular property.

Mature shade canopy
A large, healthy, well-placed tree is a feature a buyer notices. Mature canopy and shade are consistently read as an improvement, most of all on a hot inland lot.
A native specimen at the frontage
A fine coast live oak or Monterey cypress where it can be seen from the street reads as character and permanence. A tree of that size cannot be bought at any price and installed in a weekend.
Privacy and screening
An established screen between a house and a road, a neighbour or a lot that will be built on is worth real money in use, and buyers price it that way.
A landmark tree that cannot be replaced
Where a tree is old, large and beyond replacement, its removal is a permanent loss rather than a replacement cost — the thing appraisers describe as irreplaceable, and the reason a valuation is worth having.
An obstructed view
A view is one of the few things a coastal property can carry a premium for, so a tree that closes it is read as a discount, not a feature. Crown reduction is usually the answer rather than removal — and it is priced on the estimator.
Unmanaged fuel and clearance liability
Unbroken fuel from the ground into the crowns, litter in the gutters and a closed-cone pine over a deck are read as a cost an incoming owner will have to carry, and an insurer may price it too.
Structural conflict
Roots under paving, against a foundation or inside a sewer line are a defect a survey will find. Sometimes the tree stays and the paving moves; sometimes it is the tree.
Bluff and erosion risk
On a coastal bluff, shallow-rooted trees on a failing edge can be a liability as well as a stabiliser. That one needs an engineer as much as a tree care professional, and it is the situation where a browser tool is least able to help.

Using an appraisal without getting burned

A tree valuation is a document, and like any document it is only as good as its method and its provenance. Four things decide whether it holds up.

Three numbers that are not the same
Replacement cost is what it would take to put that tree back at that size. Timber value is what the wood would fetch. Market contribution is what a buyer might pay for it as part of a property. Never quote one as another.
What makes it useful
A date, the tree's location marked on a plan, photographs from the day of the assessment, the species, the measured trunk diameter and the method printed beside the number. Without those it is an opinion with a figure attached.
Who uses it, and how
An insurer wants replacement cost after a loss. A court wants the same, with a certified tree care professional prepared to sign it. A neighbour dispute wants the loss documented before anyone touches the tree. An agent wants contribution, and will treat any figure as one input among many.
A number without its method
If a valuation does not show how it was reached — the cross-section, the base rate, the species, condition and location factors — it cannot be checked, and anything that cannot be checked will not survive being questioned. That is exactly why this tool prints its own working.
What moved this
  • A possible match is an honest answer and not a failure — two coastal species genuinely cannot be separated without a cone in hand.
  • The figure is replacement cost by the ISA trunk formula, not the sale price of the timber, which for an urban tree is almost always lower.
  • Keep the printout with your photographs if a tree is ever damaged by a neighbour, a vehicle or a utility.

About Tree ID

Tree identification comes down to four questions: is the foliage a needle, a scale or a broad leaf; how is it arranged; what is the fruit; and what is the bark doing. Answer those and the list of coastal California possibilities collapses quickly. Where two species still look alike — Bishop pine against Monterey pine, for instance — the interactive key will say so rather than guess.

The second half of the tool values the tree. It uses the Trunk Formula Technique from the ISA Guide for Plant Appraisal: the cross-sectional area of the trunk in square inches, times a regional base rate, times a species factor, times a condition factor, times a location factor. It is the standard method for replacement cost, and it is the reason a mature coast live oak in a front garden is worth far more than the cost of a sapling.

A valuation like this matters when a tree is damaged by a neighbour, a vehicle or a utility. Keep the printout with your photographs; a written report from a certified tree care professional is the version an insurer will want.

How can I tell a Monterey pine from a Bishop pine?

Both have needles in bundles of two or three, but Bishop pine holds its cones closed on the branch for years while Monterey pine opens and drops them. Bishop pine is also the smaller, more coastal tree.

Are oak trees protected in San Luis Obispo County?

Coast live oak and other native oaks carry protections in many California counties, including limits on when they may be pruned or removed. We check the species, the parcel and the season before any work starts.

What is a tree worth if it is damaged?

The usual measure is replacement cost by the ISA trunk formula, which multiplies the trunk's cross-sectional area by a regional base rate and species, condition and location factors. The wizard shows each factor so you can see how a value was reached.

Does the value estimate include the timber value?

No. Landscape appraisal measures the cost to replace the tree at that size and quality, not the sale price of the wood, which for urban trees is almost always far lower.

Can the key tell a cypress from a cedar?

Only sometimes, and it says so rather than guessing. Both carry scale-like foliage in flattened sprays, so the key leans on the cone and the habit: Monterey cypress has a large rounded cone and a broad spreading crown, incense cedar a small one and a narrow spire. Bring a cone to the walk-through and it is certain.

Is the coast live oak in my garden protected?

In many California counties it is, including limits on when it may be pruned or removed, and San Luis Obispo County is one of them for trees above a certain size. The rules differ by parcel and by trunk size, so we check the species, the parcel and the season before any work is booked.