Ponderosa pine

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

A small native deciduous tree (or thicket-forming, suckering shrub) of eastern and central North America, grown for clouds of fragrant white 5-petaled flowers that open in March before the leaves and for the edible red plums that follow in early summer. It forms a broad, spreading crown with attractive dark reddish-brown twigs that sometimes carry thorny lateral branchlets. A documented larval host for swallowtails and other butterflies, with flowers of special value to native, bumble, and honey bees.

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

A large deciduous timber and nut tree of eastern North America, growing 75 to 100 feet tall with an oval to rounded crown and dark, deeply furrowed diamond-patterned bark. Pinnately compound leaves carry 13-23 strongly aromatic leaflets, and yellowish-green flowers in May-June ripen into hard-shelled edible nuts inside green husks. Its roots and tissues release juglone, a compound that suppresses azaleas, rhododendrons, blueberries, peonies, and tomato-family crops planted nearby.

One of the most majestic native North American oaks - a slow-growing, long-lived member of the white oak group that the Missouri Botanical Garden lists at 60 to 80 feet (occasionally to 150 feet) with an equally broad, rounded crown. Named for its large acorns whose cups are fringed with a mossy, bur-like scale near the rim. Notably drought- and clay-tolerant, it ranges from southeastern Canada through the central United States, and may take up to 35 years to bear its first acorn crop.