Bark resembles desert camouflage. Most people tend to overlook
tree bark as rather uninteresting, at best. It's too bad,
because bark is a fascinating and often attractive plant
"invention," and is actually rather complex in its various
appearances and origin. Of course, it is only developed on woody
plants. Clearly, bark varies considerably from species to
species, and some types of trees are easily identified by the
kind of bark they have. The bark of this tree is certainly
easily recognized. It starts out quite smooth on young twigs,
but as the branches grow, the bark begins to peel and crack,
thus exfoliating. Irregularly-shaped, plate-like sections
falling away typically reveal a beautiful mosaic of deeper bark
which is white, tan and often green, forming prominent map-like
patterns, much like a jigsaw puzzle. You might think, too, that
such bark resembles desert camouflage. Other than various native
conifers (such as white pine and hemlock), this species is
probably the largest flowering tree in eastern