Characteristic tree species include:
white pine, sugar maple, red maple, American beech, and yellow birch.

Associated tree species include:
sweet birch, gray birch, black cherry, white ash, yellow-poplar, basswood, cucumber tree, aspen, eastern hemlock, pin cherry, striped maple, white oak, northern red oak, balsam fir, white spruce, northern white-cedar, hickory, shortleaf pine, and pitch pine.

Understory plants on the Allegheny Plateau and Mountains include:
striped maple, American beech, rhododendron, viburnum, witch-hazel, eastern hophornbeam, witch hobble, and winterberry.

Understory plants in the Appalachian Mountains include:
blueberry, huckleberry, azalea, teaberry, mountain-laurel, blackberry, green brier, and Virginia creeper.

Natural or planned disturbances that create openings in the canopy larger than about one-half acre will maintain this forest association. If openings are not created, white pine/northern hardwoods will gradually convert to northern hardwoods, oak-hickory, or oak/northern hardwoods.

Forest Health Report Contents