When you look near the stream on the west side you will see
- Eastern Hemlock-most are mature (overstory) and some closest to the water are (understory)
- Northern red oak (understory)
- Yellow birch (understory)
- Eastern White Pine (overstory) canopy
- Sugar maple (understory)
Small plants
- Ferns-coverage=15%
When you look to the east side away from the water you will see
- Red maple, both (mostly understory)
- Sugar maple (understory)
- Mature Eastern Hemlocks (overstory)
- Yellow birch that are surrounded by ferns (understory)
- Eastern White Pine (overstory) canopy
These are shade tolerant trees or intermediate. Eastern Hemlocks are shade tolerant and Northern Red Oaks are intermediate. Both are able to persist under lower light intensity. Red maple that aren’t mature are able to flourish better with low sunlight availability, but it’s more difficult for mature red maples. Yellow birch are closer to the area where there’s more sunlight, closer to the water and the edge of the trail because they are shade intolerant. This means they need more sunlight in order to thrive. These trees thrive by streams. Most prefer either acidic and or well drained clay soil.
Small plants
- Ferns-coverage=25%
There aren’t many woody plants. There’s a lot of dead matter on the ground
- Leaves fallen from trees-coverage=10%
- Pine cones (long and skinny)-coverage=5%
- Needles-coverage=65%
- Dead branches-coverage=2%
- Logs-coverage=5%
There are wet logs with moss. There’s a lot of organic matter on the ground and the area is really damp due to a lot of rainfall. The soil is most likely well drained and gets a lot of its nutrients from this organic matter. Most of my area is on a small downhill facing west. There’s a flowing stream at the bottom of the downhill. On the east side there’s a slope uphill.