Welcome to my phenology blog! For my phenology site I chose a spot in East Woods, not far from the trailhead. I chose East Woods because I really enjoy going to Centennial Woods, but I wanted to go somewhere new, that is less busy than Centennial is.

I bike to my site. It’s in South Burlington, so I exit campus over by the gym parking garage. I take a right onto the bike path that runs along Spear Street (until it ends and I merge onto Spear Street). I continue for a while and then take a right on Swift Street. The trail entrance is on the right. 

My spot is a few minutes walk into the trail. It is marked by a large dead Eastern White Pine (standing), as well as some similarly large fallen trees that fell across the trail and were sawed through to clear the path.

In my spot, there is little to no visible “nontree” vegetation on the forest floor. No ferns or other small plants were found. In the spot and surrounding area there were a variety of trees; Northern Red Oak, Red Maple, American Beech, Black Cherry, and Eastern Hemlock. Having walked farther down the trail as well, this spot is a good representation of the tree variety in East Woods.

A few things stuck out to me. At the trail entrance, there is a cluster of Buckwoods, however, after the entrance, I could not find one more. This was surprising considering how it spreads and how prevalent it is in Centennial. Another thing that was interesting was that there were a few Basswoods deeper into the trail, but the leaves were twice the size of any Basswoods I had ever seen, to the point that I had difficulty identifying it.