These riddles about trees come in three sets: the tree and its parts, kinds of tree, and things called a tree, a branch, a root or a leaf that never grew in the ground.
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Tree riddles for a walk, a class or Arbor Day
The tree and its parts suits a walk in the woods: roots, a ring for every year, a twig, a hollow, a tire swing. Kinds of tree asks for a name, from the paper birch and the weeping willow to the banyan and the baobab, and ends with puns on fir, elder, beech, spruce and plane.
Riddles about a tree that is not a tree
Trees that are not trees plays on the words. A family tree, a shoe tree and a cat tree never grew. A bank has a branch, a tooth has a root, and the captain of a ship keeps a log.
Outdoors, whoever guesses right has to point to the answer on a real tree.
Questions and answers
What is a good riddle about a tree?
The higher you climb me, the thinner I get and the more I sway. What am I? A tree. For a harder one: a tree leaves me behind when it is cut down, and a hard riddle does me to you. Stump.
What are some funny tree riddles?
The puns are in Kinds of tree. Which tree sounds exactly like the coat of a cat or a bear? A fir. Which tree is always older than the trees around it? An elder. Which tree is the best dressed? A spruce.
Which tree riddles are easy enough for kids?
The Easy level keeps to things a child has seen: a twig, a leaf, a tire swing, a bonsai, a coat tree. Hard asks for a name or a saying, such as the banyan or going out on a limb.
A tree adds one of me for each year of its life. I am wide after a wet year with a long summer and very narrow after a drought. What am I?Answer: A tree ring. One ring generally marks one year. Enough rain and a long growing season make it wide, and a drought makes it narrow.
A tree has me, and so do you. In a saying, a person who takes a risk goes out on me. What am I?Answer: A limb. A limb is a branch, an arm or a leg. To go out on a limb is to take a risk.
A tree leaves me behind when it is cut down. A hard riddle does me to you. What word am I?Answer: Stump. To stump someone is to puzzle them.
An elephant drinks through one. A traveler packs one. The third one holds up branches and has never moved an inch. What is the third one?Answer: A tree trunk. Trunk is the word for all three.
For a week in spring I make the tree look as if it were covered in popcorn. Then I fall like confetti, and fruit grows where I was. What am I?Answer: Blossom. The flowers of a fruit tree fall, and the fruit grows in their place.
The higher you climb me, the thinner I get and the more I sway. What am I?Answer: A tree. A tree is thick at the bottom, and its top branches bend.
I am a hole in the side of an old tree. To an owl, a squirrel or a raccoon, I am the front door. What am I?Answer: A tree hollow. Animals nest and shelter in the hollows of old trees.
I am a holiday with no presents and no fireworks. On my day, people are asked to go outside and plant a tree. What am I?Answer: Arbor Day. Arbor Day is a day on which people are encouraged to plant trees.
I am a tree in kindergarten. I am thinner than your wrist, and a stake and a string may hold me straight. What am I?Answer: A sapling. A sapling is a young tree.
I am called the heart of a tree only because of where I am. A tree can go on living when I have rotted away and left it hollow. What am I?Answer: Heartwood. The name comes from its place at the center, and a tree can thrive with its heart decayed.
I am one word. A logger shouts me as a warning just before the tree comes down. What word am I?Answer: Timber. Loggers call "Timber!" to warn that a tree is falling.
I am the smallest branch on the tree. To a bird building a nest, I am a brick. What am I?Answer: A twig. Birds weave twigs into their nests.
I hang from a strong branch by one rope. Before I was a swing, I rolled down the road under a car. What am I?Answer: A tire swing. A tire swing is an old tire hung from a branch.
I have veins and no blood, a blade and no edge. I am green all summer, and I belong to a tree. What am I?Answer: A leaf. The lines in a leaf are called veins, and its flat part is called the blade.
I was a tree once. Now I am thin and flat, and you write on me, fold me and wrap presents in me. What am I?Answer: Paper. Most paper is made from wood pulp.
I was a tree once. Now I am your pencil, your chair, your front door and the floor under your feet. What am I?Answer: Wood. All four are commonly made of wood.
I work in the dark, under the lawn. The only time people notice me is the day I lift the sidewalk. What am I?Answer: The roots. Roots spread under the ground and can push up a sidewalk.
Two people cut their initials and a heart into my side, and I will carry them for the rest of my life. What am I?Answer: A tree. A carving in the bark stays on the trunk as the tree grows.
Kinds of tree 21
A proverb calls me mighty and says I grow from something little. What tree am I, and what is the little thing?Answer: An oak, from an acorn. The proverb is: mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
Cut a slanting line in my bark, and a sticky, milky white liquid runs out. People collect it to make rubber. What tree am I?Answer: A rubber tree. Rubber is harvested as latex, a sticky, milky white liquid drawn off through cuts in the bark.
I am a pine of the high, dry mountains of California, Nevada and Utah. One of my kind, named Methuselah, is more than 4,800 years old. What tree am I?Answer: A Great Basin bristlecone pine. Methuselah is a Great Basin bristlecone pine about 4,850 years old.
I am a real tree, and I live in a pot on a table. Somebody trims and shapes me so that I stay small. What am I?Answer: A bonsai. Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers.
I am any tree that sheds its leaves every year, usually in the autumn. My name means "falling off." What kind of tree am I?Answer: A deciduous tree. Deciduous means "falling off at maturity."
In late winter, people drill a small hole in my trunk and collect what drips out. Heated for a long time, it turns into syrup for pancakes. What tree am I?Answer: A maple. Maple trees are tapped, and the sap is heated until most of the water is gone.
My bark is thin and white, and it peels off the trunk in layers like sheets of paper. What tree am I?Answer: A paper birch. The paper birch is named for its thin white bark, which peels in paper-like layers.
My fruit is big and hard, with water inside. It floats so well that the sea can carry it away to another shore. What tree am I?Answer: A coconut palm. Wild coconuts are buoyant, which suits them to travel by sea.
My kind has grown the tallest living trees on Earth. We stand near the coast of California and Oregon. What tree am I?Answer: A coast redwood. The species has produced the tallest living trees on Earth.
My thick bark is peeled off every nine to twelve years, and it does me no harm. It ends up as the stopper in a bottle. What tree am I?Answer: A cork oak. The bark of a cork oak can be harvested for cork every 9 to 12 years without harming the tree.
People call me quaking and trembling. What tree am I?Answer: An aspen. Quaking aspen and trembling aspen are two common names of one North American tree.
People call me the upside down tree. I am one of the longest-lived of all trees. What tree am I?Answer: A baobab. The baobab is known as the "upside down tree" for the way it looks.
People call me weeping, though I have never shed a tear. My long branches hang down like hair. What tree am I?Answer: A weeping willow. The branches of a weeping willow droop toward the ground.
Roots drop from my branches, reach the ground and thicken into new trunks. Give me time, and one tree looks like a whole grove. What tree am I?Answer: A banyan. A banyan grows extra trunks from its prop roots and keeps spreading outward.
Take the word apple off the end of a spiky tropical fruit, and my name is left. I stay green all winter. What tree am I?Answer: A pine. Pineapple without apple is pine.
When I bloom in Japan, people hold parties outdoors under my branches. My flowers last only a week or two. What tree am I?Answer: A cherry tree. The custom is called hanami, and the cherry blossoms are called sakura.
Which tree is always older than the trees around it?Answer: An elder. An elder is a small tree, and elder also means older.
Which tree is the best dressed? Its name also means neat and tidy.Answer: A spruce. Spruce means trim and neat, and to spruce up is to make tidy.
Which tree shares its name with something that has wings and never grows a feather?Answer: A plane tree. A plane is a tree, and a plane is also an aircraft.
Which tree sounds as if it grows on the sand by the sea?Answer: A beech. Beech and beach sound the same.
Which tree sounds exactly like the coat of a cat or a bear?Answer: A fir. Fir and fur sound the same.
Trees that are not trees 18
A dentist uses the same word for us as for a maple or an oak: deciduous. Every child has us for a few years, and then we are lost. What are we?Answer: Baby teeth. Deciduous teeth is the formal name for baby teeth.
According to a proverb, I am the one thing that does not grow on trees. What am I?Answer: Money. The proverb is: money doesn't grow on trees.
I am a branch with a front door, a counter and a vault. No bird has ever landed on me. What am I?Answer: A branch of a bank. A branch is one location of an organization that has several, such as a bank.
I am a horse with four wooden legs and no head. I never eat, and a carpenter lays a board across my back to cut it. What am I?Answer: A sawhorse. A sawhorse holds up a board for sawing, and it is named for its horse-like shape.
I am a leaf made of metal. I was hammered so thin that a breath can blow me away, and I make a picture frame shine. What am I?Answer: Gold leaf. Gold leaf is gold hammered into very thin sheets and used for gilding.
I am a log that no saw has ever touched. The captain of a ship writes in me. What am I?Answer: A ship's log. A ship's log is the written record that the captain was responsible for keeping.
I am a long, flat board. I am also an exercise in which you hold your body off the floor, as straight and still as I am. What word am I?Answer: Plank. The plank is held in a position like a push-up.
I am a root that has never touched soil. I sit in your jaw and hold a tooth in place. What am I?Answer: The root of a tooth. The part of a tooth below the gum is its root.
I am a root you can drink. I am brown and fizzy, and I come in a frosty mug with a scoop of ice cream. What am I?Answer: Root beer. Root beer was traditionally made with the root bark of the sassafras tree.
I am a tree covered in carpet. I have platforms and a post to scratch, and only one kind of animal climbs me. What am I?Answer: A cat tree. A cat tree is a structure for a cat to play, climb and sleep on.
I am a tree that lives in a closet. I am pushed inside a shoe at night so that it keeps its shape. What am I?Answer: A shoe tree. A shoe tree is a device placed inside a shoe to preserve its shape.
I am a tree that stands in the hall by the front door. My branches are hooks, and my leaves are coats and hats. What am I?Answer: A coat tree. A coat tree is a stand with hooks for coats and hats.
I have branches and no leaves, and roots and no soil. Your grandparents sit above you on me. What am I?Answer: A family tree. A family tree is a chart of parents, grandparents and children.
In a saying, a person who has the wrong idea is doing this up the wrong tree. What is it?Answer: Barking. The saying comes from a hunting dog that barks at the foot of the wrong tree.
In a saying, a person who looks too hard at the trees cannot see me, though I am made of nothing but trees. What am I?Answer: The forest. The saying is that someone can't see the forest for the trees.
In an old lullaby, I am the place where the baby rocks. What part of a tree am I?Answer: The treetop. The lullaby begins "Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top."
People rap their knuckles on me for luck, right after they say that things are going well. What am I?Answer: Wood. To knock on wood is a custom meant to keep bad luck away.
We are trunks that no tree ever grew. You wear us to the pool. What are we?Answer: Swim trunks. Swim trunks are shorts for swimming.