Identifying trees and leaves on Dartmoor!
- Jack Dicker
- May 22
- 6 min read
Updated: May 27
Identifying trees and leaves on Dartmoor, a leaf-spotting adventure!
Discover the shapes, colours, and textures of Dartmoor’s trees.
Sometimes the simplest walks can become the most magical-especially when you have something to search for along the way. In this blog, we’re heading into Dartmoor’s woodlands, riverbanks, and moor edges to hunt for something often overlooked: leaves.
If you’ve read our blog on what makes a route child-friendly, you’ll know we love making adventures simple and rewarding. This is one more way to build those moments into a walk starting with Identifying trees and leaves on Dartmoor.
We’ve put together a gentle leaf-spotting guide that families can use on their walks, turning ordinary moments into playful, sensory experiences. From the pointy edges of a holly leaf to the smooth curves of beech, Dartmoor’s leaf variety is vast. With each one, there’s something to notice: the shape, the shade, the tree it came from, and the place it lives.
So here’s the challenge: how many can you find? You might spot one or two on your next walk or you might need a few visits to tick them all off. Either way, it’s a great excuse to slow down and really look at what’s around you.
What to look for on your leaf adventure
We’ll be covering leaves from trees and shrubs you’re likely to encounter in Dartmoor’s varied habitats, including ten of the most common:
Oak - Iconic, lobed leaves with deep rounded curves. Oaks are often found in Dartmoor’s ancient woodlands and hedgerows. Look for them on older, established routes, often near farmland edges or lower valley slopes. Leaves usually begin to bud in April as the weather warms.
Fun fact: Oak trees can live for hundreds of years and support more wildlife than any other native tree in the UK.
Beech - Smooth, oval-shaped leaves with a slight point. They grow in clusters and turn golden brown in autumn. Beech trees often prefer well-drained, fertile soils, so you’ll likely find them on drier woodland paths and managed estates. Buds typically appear in late April to early May, unfolding into lush green leaves.
Fun fact: Beech trees create a dense canopy that shades the ground, making the forest floor beneath them beautifully cool on a hot summers day.
Holly - Thick, evergreen leaves with shiny surfaces and spiky edges. These small trees and shrubs are common in shaded woodlands and hedge lines. Look for their red berries in late autumn and winter. As an evergreen, Holly keeps its leaves year-round, but new growth starts appearing around May.
Fun fact: Holly leaves near the base of a tree are usually spikier to protect from grazing animals, while higher leaves tend to be smoother.
Ash - are tall, elegant, and love light. Their leaves are made up of small leaflets, paired opposite each other with a single leaflet on the tip, giving them a soft, feathery shape. You’ll often find ash along hedgerows or scattered across open, damp woodland. The leaves are a light, fresh green in spring and summer, turning a soft yellow or purplish brown before falling early in autumn. They’re one of the last trees to bud and one of the first to drop, always a little out of step with the others. Ash will bud in late April into May
Fun fact: In Norse mythology, the ash tree was seen as the ‘Tree of Life’ and was believed to have protective powers.
Hazel - Rounded leaves with soft, toothed edges and a slightly heart-shaped base. Can feel a bit furry? Hazels love hedgerows and mixed woodland and are usually found in coppiced areas or along shaded paths. One of the earliest to bud, hazel leaves can start emerging as early as February.
Fun fact: Hazel trees were once a key part of traditional woodland management and are still coppiced today to encourage new growth.
Silver Birch - Light, delicate leaves with a triangular shape and double-toothed edges. Silver birch prefers open woodland and streamside areas, often thriving in regenerating or newer woodland habitats. Buds typically break open in April, bringing fresh green colour to the moor.
Fun fact: Birch bark was once used for writing in ancient times due to its smooth, papery texture.
Sycamore - Broad, five-lobed leaves similar to a maple. These hardy trees are commonly found in valleys and near old stone walls or ruins. Look for them near settlements or shaded lanes. Look for sycamore buds to burst around mid to late April.
Fun fact: Sycamore seeds spin like little helicopters when they fall, making them a favourite for kids to toss into the air.
Field Maple - is the UK’s only native maple tree. Its leaves look like a small, rounded version of a sycamore leaf, often with soft edges and a hand-like shape. You’ll find it tucked into hedgerows and sunny woodland edges, especially around the lower stretches of the moor. The leaves start out fresh green and shift to gold or red as autumn creeps in. They’re smooth to the touch with a slightly waxy surface, and they catch the light beautifully when the sun’s low. They will bud mid to late March.
Fun fact: Field maple wood was once prized for fine carving and was planted for good luck near homes and farms.
Black Poplar - Triangular or heart-shaped leaves with finely toothed edges and a glossy surface. These rare native trees are more commonly found in lowland areas but can occasionally be spotted on Dartmoor’s lower, wetter edges near rivers or damp meadows. The bark is dark and deeply ridged, giving the tree its name. Look for black poplar buds to appear in early to mid-April.
Fun fact: Black poplars are one of Britain’s rarest native trees, and their leaves make a soft rustling sound that’s often compared to gentle rain.
Hornbeam - Often mistaken for beech, hornbeam leaves are more deeply ridged and have sharper serrated edges. These trees prefer drier soils and are often planted along old boundaries or found in managed woodland. Look for their distinctive twisted trunks and tough, fluted leaves in quieter wooded pockets. Hornbeam leaves emerge a little later, usually in late April to early May.
Fun fact: Hornbeam wood is so tough it was used to make the cogs in old water mills and early machinery.
Leaf colours and textures
Don’t just look, feel them too. Leaf textures offer as much variety as their shapes. Some are smooth and shiny like holly, others are soft and velvety like hazel. Beech leaves often feel papery and thin, while Willow is silky and delicate. Silver birch leaves flutter at the lightest breeze, adding movement to a walk, while hornbeam and oak tend to feel tougher and firmer to the touch.
These differences are brilliant talking points with kids and help build sensory memory.
If you’re walking with younger ones, ask them to describe the feel: is it soft like a feather? Smooth like a pebble? Or bumpy like a caterpillar’s back?
Keep an eye on colour too. Dartmoor’s seasons bring huge variety. You might spot:
Bright spring greens on birch and beech
Deep summer gloss on holly and sycamore
Rusty oranges and yellows by autumn
Dark reds or purples on rowan and hazel in late season
Evergreens holding on through the winter
Some trees, like the oak, can hold onto brown, crinkled leaves well into winter, adding texture to even the quietest walks. Watching how colours change with the weeks is one of the gentlest ways to track the rhythm of the land.
Make it a challenge!
To make your leaf walk more exciting, why not bring a little checklist with you? You could even build on our tips from what to pack when hiking with children to keep things light, playful, and practical.
You can:
Tick off each leaf as you find it
Sketch them
Collect fallen ones (never pick from living trees)
Make a rubbing using a crayon and paper
You might even:
Try matching bark to leaf
Guess which tree the leaf came from
Make a nature collage when you get home
Don’t worry if you don’t find them all
That’s part of the fun. Different trees grow in different areas like woodland, riverside and upland fringes, so spotting them all might take more than one walk. And that’s exactly the point.
It gives you a reason to come back. To explore a little further. To notice something new each time. And to create small moments that matter, like those we reflect on in Little walks, big moments.
And if you’re walking one of our Dartmoor Partner routes, keep your eyes peeled. You’ll spot tree varieties in all kinds of places, but for the best chances, look for walks marked with our 'woodland' icon on the routes page. These trails take you through leafy canopies, riversides, and quiet groves where leaf-spotting becomes even more magical.. We’ll be marking a few where you’re more likely to spot different tree types, so the leaf adventure can be part of the route itself.
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