trees & forests

Forester Matt Decker describes the 185-acre Garrison School Forest as a patchwork of forest types. It's mostly a Chestnut Oak forest with patches of Appalachian-Oak Hickory forest. There is also a Red Cedar Rocky Summit forest area around the South Redoubt and the ridge tops. There was once a Hemlock forest on the northern slopes, but most of the Hemlock trees have been killed by the Hemlock woolly adelgid insect. Explore below to learn how to identify trees and read forested landscapes.

WHAT TREE IS IT?

What Tree Is It? helps students identify trees by leaf shape, fruit, common name, and scientific name. The site was created by the Ohio Historical Society.

the vtree APP

Virginia Tech offers the free vTree app for iPhone and Android. The app contains fact sheets for 969 woody plants from all over North America. It provides in-depth descriptions, range maps and thousands of color images of leaves, flowers, fruit, twigs, and bark. 

how to identify
​leaves

The Virginia Tech's Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation offers The Key to Leaves of Virginia Trees. The website helps students identify trees by asking a series of questions about the appearance and shape of a leaf a student has found.

how trees benefit wildlife

The National Wildlife Federation explains how living trees, standing dead trees, and decaying trees provide food and shelter for animals and plants.

know your trees

This guide to 50 species of trees in New York State is available both as a website and a printable bulletin. Originally written in 1927 by Joshua A. Cope, an extension forester at Cornell University, the guide was revised and reprinted several times since 1927. Cope's grandson, Edward A. Cope, of Cornell University's Bailey Hortorium, updated the guide in 2001. 

reading the forest

Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England is an essential resource that helps you see trees and forests with fresh eyes. Ecologist Tom Wessels guides readers in learning how to how to read a forest ecosystem by observing changes, seeing patterns, and deciphering disturbance histories, such as fires or hurricanes. He explains the reasons why trees fall in certain directions, the cause of basal scars, and the six common forms of forest disturbance. Borrow this book through the Mid-Hudson Library System.

how trees communicate

Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, has found that trees communicate with one another through networks of fungi that connect to tree roots. She explains that networks of trees within forest ecosystems resemble the neural networks of our brains.

tree identification

Dr. Don Leopold, Distinguished Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, describes the sugar maple, New York's state tree. Learn how to identify trees through Trees with Don Leopold, a series of 135 tree identification videos featuring Dr. Leopold.