There are several ways that you can explore and use PhillyTreeMap.
Thank you for your assistance in making PhillyTreeMap a great resource for information on trees in the greater 13-county, 3-state Philadelphia region!
Visit the PhillyTreeMap Tree Key to research the species of your tree. The tree key will walk you through the process of determining a tree species based on leaf structure. If you cannot definitively determine your tree species, you can still add your tree to PhillyTreeMap. If possible, upload images of your tree and its bark, leaves, flowers, or fruit. Other PhillyTreeMap users may be able to determine the tree species based on these images.
We tried to include all the major species found in the Philadelphia region, but we could easily have missed a few. If your tree’s species is not an option in PhillyTreeMap, email phillytreemap@pennhort.org to have it added to the system.
Entering the diameter of a tree is crucial for helping track that tree’s growth and environmental benefits. Measuring the diameter can be a bit tricky though. The following video from the people at UrbanForestMap.org provides a quick tutorial on an easy way to measure your tree’s diameter.
Plot type refers to the location where the tree is planted. There are a number of different possible plot types. Please select the one that most accurately reflects your tree's location.
Our data comes from several different datasets gathered by local horticultural organizations in the last fifteen years. Organizations that contributed data include the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, and the Township of Lower Merion.
There are a number of great ways to get involved in caring for trees and supporting conservation events throughout Philly.
Absolutely! PhillyTreeMap supports the addition of information for trees in the greater thirteen county, three state region around Philadelphia - the same region covered by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Plant One Million campaign.
If you are from a town or other community and have a tree inventory you would like to add to PhillyTreeMap, please contact phillytreemap@pennhort.org.
Much of the data comes from horticultural organizations in Philadelphia who have carefully surveyed street trees throughout the city. You can help us ensure that the data is as current and accurate as possible by updating and correcting information on the trees in your neighborhood. We have implemented a number of checks that will hopefully prevent the entering of incorrect data. If you find incorrect information, please correct it!
PhillyTreeMap is a collaborative mapping tool and inventory of trees in the greater Philadelphia region. It is not a tool for reporting issues with trees or potentially hazardous or dead trees. If you are concerned about a public tree, please contact your local government. Within the City of Philadelphia, please use the Philly 311 system. If you are located outside the City of Philadelphia, please contact your local government to determine the best way to report tree issues.
To calculate the eco impact of a tree, the i-Tree software we use must know the species and diameter of the tree. For many of the trees, we might know the location of the tree but not the exact species and diameter. For this reason, many neighborhoods in Philadelphia may show lots of trees but not list any eco impact data. You can help us more accurately calculate eco data by entering the species and diameter for trees in your neighborhood.
We calculated the economic benefits and environmental impacts of the trees using the i-Tree software provided by the USDA Forest Service. This software provides options for calculating benefits by assigning a dollar value to the impact of trees in a number of ecological areas. These areas include electricity, natural gas, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and stormwater interception. The USDA Forest Service provides default dollar values for each of the categories in i-Tree. We used these default values for carbon dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and stormwater interception as no values specific to the Philadelphia region were available. For the electricity fields, we used a price of $0.1323 per Kwh based on local Philadelphia electricity rates for residential customers. For natural gas rates, we used a price of $1.50 per therm. To calculate the benefits to a homeowner, we also entered a median home sale price for Philadelphia of $120,000 based on data gathered from Trulia.com, the real estate search site. Based on these numbers, i-Tree calculated the approximate financial benefits of a tree based on its species and size.