OT:
Thanks Adarias it means much. If it tells me anything though, it's that I pixel far too many trees. Haha! I guess I, to an extent, share your views on the beauty of trees. Which is probably why they're always finding a way into my repertoire.
not OT:
The latest tree, while better, still exaggerates the sphere tree. Now you've gone and expanded the leaves beyond the spheres but they are still, very much so, part of the spheres. It's better to think of trees and their limbs as fingers, like Adarias said. In fact, I would personally suggest that you draw the tree with just it's limbs first. From there you can add on circular splotches of leaves. I think you'll find that you're much closer to where you want to be with that approach. I was fortunate enough to have an art lesson in elementary school where we drew a leaveless winter tree with black marker and then painted the skyline with cheap watercolor paints. Probably one of the most important art lessons I ever got out of school. Heh.
To round off the critique; I think you need to streamline your colors. They all feel very random in color selection and lightness and hurt the piece as a whole. Individually they're really great colors though. My suggestion, lighten up the 'black', darken the darkest green and put it before the darkest red. Up the saturation in the lighter colors and adjust their lightness so they can contrast a little bit better. Right now your colors look like a desert themed Gameboy Color palette. (GBC only uses 4 colors btw)