Plants and Animals
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Plants
Despite its harsh-looking environment, the Basic Woodland is beautiful at all seasons of the year. The trees are shorter and more widely spaced than in a closed-canopy forest. The spacing of the trees allows more light to reach the woodland floor, and this helps a great variety of grasses, sedges, and wildflowers flourish here. Look for patches of waist-high goldenrod, sunflower, and mountainmint in the summer.
Canopy Trees
The trees whose crowns intercept most of the sunlight in a forest stand. The uppermost layer of a forest.
- mockernut hickory
- pignut hickory
- white ash
- black walnut (occasional)
- chestnut oak (occasional)
- eastern red-cedar (occasional)
- post oak (occasional)
- Virginia pine (occasional)
Understory Trees
Small trees and young specimens of large trees growing beneath the canopy trees. Also called the subcanopy.
- chestnut oak
- common serviceberry
- common hackberry
- Virginia pine
- black cherry (occasional)
- blackgum (occasional)
- sassafras (occasional)
- slippery elm (occasional)
Shrubs, Saplings, and Vines
Shrubs, juvenile trees and vines at the right height to give birds and others a perch up off the ground but below the trees.
- blackhaw
- coralberry
- shrubby St. John’s-wort
- summer grape
- eastern poison-ivy (occasional)
- hillside blueberry (occasional)
- northern dewberry (occasional)
Low Plants (Field Layer)
Plants growing low to the ground. This includes small shrubs and tree seedlings.
- eastern bottlebrush grass
- elmleaf goldenrod
- hoary mountainmint
- Pennsylvania sedge
- poverty oatgrass
- rock muhly
- woodland sunflower
- Bosc’s witchgrass (occasional)
- little bluestem (occasional)
Non-Native Invasive Plant Species
The shallow, dry soil of the Basic Woodland limits the types of non-native invasive plants trying to invade here. However, the high level of soil nutrients makes it possible for some species of drought-tolerant plants to thrive, including common motherwort* and common yarrow*. See Ecological Threats for more.
Notable Variations
Because there are relatively few trees in examples of this community, there can be fine-scale[/no-scale] variation in the species present.
Animals
Even though natural communities aren’t named after animals, animals do play a crucial role in maintaining natural communities. Plants and animals need each other. To name just a few examples, plants provide food and habitat for animals, and animals help plants reproduce by spreading pollen and seeds. To learn more, see The Role of Animals in Natural Communities in Ecology Basics.
Check out iNaturalist to see photos of animals (and plants!) that people have seen in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.