Seasonal Highlights: Mixed Oak / Heath Forest (Low-Elevation) in Rock Creek Park

Spring Highlights

A pink or coral tinge to some oak leaves as they are just emerging. Showy white blooms of common serviceberry shrubs (early spring) and flowering dogwood trees (mid-spring before their leaves are out). Long clusters of tiny white flowers of black cherry (late spring). Pinkish to red blooms of hillside blueberry, pink azalea, and red maple—early bloomers.

Summer Highlights

Pinkish to red blooms of black huckleberry. Inconspicuous stalks of ½-inch greenish to purplish blooms of cranefly orchid. Tiny white blooms of striped prince's-pine and partridgeberry. Dark berries of hillside blueberry, black huckleberry, and common serviceberry shrubs. Long clusters of tiny bitter black fruits of black cherry (late summer).

Autumn Highlights

Scarlet leaves of huckleberries at knee height, deep purple-red leaves of mapleleaf viburnum just above them. Brilliant yellow mitten-shaped leaves of sassafras. Bright orange-red leaves of blackgum. White blooms of white wood-aster. Red berries of partridgeberry and flowering dogwood.

Winter Highlights

Dull green (top side) and purple (underside) leaf of cranefly orchid, low to the ground. Acorns of variable shapes and sizes. Bark—platey gray of white oak; striped pattern of northern red oak; deep furrows of chestnut oak.