Star Sticks

Shortly before heading to Oregon I did a post on Oregon Trees and at the end of it I mentioned how my nephew introduced me to Star Sticks. Last week we (my nephew and I) went back to the same park and found some more Star Sticks. They are soooo cool!

Below is a little tutorial on finding star sticks. From what I can find online, the star sticks are found in the twigs of Cottonwood trees.

First, you find a Cottonwood Tree.
Identifying a Cottonwood Tree
The park we went to had many different trees. So it was important to figure out which was a Cottonwood tree.

I found the easiest ways to find a cottonwood tree is by finding a leaf or twig, by the base of the trunk.

The leaves of a cottonwood are similar to a spade in a deck of cards and are 3-4 inches long and green in color.

The twigs are long and skiny and have knots every so often

A couple other things that can help you identify a cottonwood tree are:

The branches and leaves are very high.

The trees are very tall (can grow up to 200 feet high) and have a great shade canopy.

The bark is thin and smooth on young trees.

Now, that you have identified the cottonwood tree and found the twigs, you can find the stars.

In the twig there are seams, this is where you break the twig and find the stars.

Note: The twigs need to be not too green or too brown, but just right.

Some twigs can give you many stars!

Let me know if you find some star sticks!