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Softwood key by description.

Dennen | Sparren | Zilversparren | Hemlocks en Douglas | Cypres-achtigen | (tuin-coniferen) | Sequoias | Ceders | rest naaldbomen

Determining what species of tree you are dealing with.

You should have had a look at the softwood key by pictures first. If you didn't please have a look there first, since pictures work a lot faster than text -based keys.
This key holds some more technical clues to tell species apart: especially fir trees are pretty hard.
To make things as less complicated as possible we will use a key based on elimination: this makes sure the identification is as good as it gets! Still Fir-trees remain pretty hard.

• 1. a. The trees has no needles but more something like layers of green, where individual "leafs" look like small twigs made up of joined segments. The tree is column-shaped and it is hard to discern branches because the tree it is one green shape. You cannot look through the branches. Often in gardens or parks, noty often in woods ---> Cypresses and cypress-lookalikes
  
• b. Tree has extremely broad needles/leafs much like palms or huge grasses. It almost always stands in a garden of park --> rest softwoods, Monkey_puzzletree or Japanese_umbrella-pine
  
• c. tree does have needles --> 2
  
• 2. Some trees that are easy to spot.
  2. a. A usually pretty small column-shaped tree with 1cm long sharp needles that are in circle-shaped bunches. The wild form has sharp needles, some varieties have not. Sometimes with blue to green berries. Usually in gardens. In the Netherlands not often in the woods or in the wild, since it reproduces very poorly and grows extremely slow. -> Common_juniper.
  b. Tree has a kind of softish red bark that often peels off in long strings. Not with layers of green, but with flat soft needle-like twigs made up of segments. Needles are aimed towards the end of the segmented twig. The end of twigs is not wood but seems to be made up of segments of needles. On the end of some twigs often small little balls that are light green to yellow to brown. Fruits are green to wood-colored. In some species until 5 cm tall. Pretty rare in the woods, almost always in the park and sometimes in gardens --> Japanese_cedar and Giant_sequoia Sequoias.
  c. Tree with soft flat non-stinging short needles (1cm), that sit on the twig like a comb (2 rows horizontal oposing eachother). Needles are dark green and have are shiny dark-green (except early in spring when they are more lightish green). Tree can be broad, but never higher a a two-story building. Bark redish and peels of in patches, not in long vertical slices top to bottom. Usually the tree looks a bit like a bush/brush with more trunks. Does not often look like the form of a christmas tree. Sometimes however it does. Has small red/blue fruits like small berries that look like small cups. Not often in the woods, but more in gardens and parks --> English_yew or Taxus baccata
  
  d. Same needles as above, but needles are Light-greenish. Almost always with one straight trunk like a christmas tree. Soft redish bark that may peel off top to bottom in slices. Fruit, if present is round. Needles fall of in the winter. In parks and sometimes gardens --> Dawn redwood and Bald cypress --> Sequoias en verwanten.
  e. Other trees with needles --> 3
• 3. Potentially big trees with needles.
  a. Needles in groups or bunch of many --> 4 Larches and Cedars
  
  b. Needles not in pairs but alone, short (til 3 cm usually), often with a difference between under and upside, almost always one trunk, cones (fruit) conish and often softish (leather-like or paper-like but not woodlike in feeling) (cones fall of either as a whole or disintegrate on the tree leaving a center pin) . Tree looks like a christmas tree --> 5. Spruces, Firs (fir-trees), Hemlocks and Douglas
  
  c. Needles in bunches of 2 to 5, rather long (5 cm to 20 cm) without clear down or upside. Tree does not look like a neat christmastree but is more loose/wirly. Cones made of stirdy wood (fall of as a whole), not soft at all, sometimes with stings --> Pines
  
• 4. Larches and Cedars (needles in groups/bundles).
  a. Tree has almost always many very small (2 cm) cute rose-like woody cones. Buches of 20 needles on little elevation on the twig. Needles fall of in authumn and become beautifully yellow. Bark rough. European Larch has cones wit curly scales, Japanese wit more straight scales. Corslings are in between. Many planted in woods, --> Rest softwoods with Larches.
  b. Trees without small cones. If there are cones they are as big as apples and they stand. Almost always in gardens/parks. Wtach out, the flowers that arrive in spring also look like cones-fruits, but are not! Flowers appear a lot more than the fruits. Flowers are more pointy, while fruits have a top like an apple with a dent on top. Needles in bunches of 20-30. Only in gardens. The often blue-ish Atlas cedar is very popular in gardens. --> Cedars.
• 5. Spruces, Fir-trees, Hemlocks and Douglas.
  The Spruce-like trees here are hard to very hard to keep apart. I will start with the least hard species and we work out way up to the impossible.
  a. Tree has rather small but not tiny cones (about 5 cm), with "snake-tongue" like straps sticking out (have a look at the pictures). Trunk is very peculiar of structure with all but non-small trees. Bark is bursted open and a yellowish lava-like structure comes out. Once you have seen this the tree is easy to recognise. Needles are soft, small with white underneath. Many in woods. In the Netherlands the seoncd-most seen fir-tree/spruce --> Douglas firtree
  b. Two species, with many many 2 cm small cones. Not often, but sometimes in woods. Sometimes in gardens. --> Hemlock firtrees (Western and Eastern).
  c. Left are the Spruces and Firtrees.
  On the left picture a Fir-tree needle, right a Spruce (Picea). The spruce needle tears loose and a small piece of bark comes with it. The Fir-tree needle leaves a small round hole behind.
  
  Spruce-cones fall of the tree as a whole. Often you find many under the tree. Needles of Spruces stand on a small stem: if you tear of a needle a small piece of bark comes wit it. Needles sting often and are not soft and flat/broad. Buds are not round. Many in woods, also in gardens and parks --> Spruces (genus Picea)
  d. Cones stand on the branch, but more often tha not you do not see them at all. They fall apart on the tree leaving only pins wit a round dish-like structure like a sabel. Under the tree sometimes scales of the cones are found. If you pull of a needle a little hole remains. Needles are flat and do not sting. Buds are egg-round. Often smell like oranges when you smell crushed-needles/twigs and resin. Mostly in parks and gardens, sometimes in woods. --> Fir-trees (Firtrees) (genus Abies)