(1) Miller’s Woods (Sept. 14,15,16)
(2) Radrick Forest (Sept. 21,22,23 )
(3) Waterloo Recreation Area (Sept. 28,29,30)
(4) Haven Hill (Oct. 5,6,7)
(5) Lawrence Woodlot (Oct. 12,13,14)
Fall break (Oct. 19,20,21)
Field Identification Exam I (Oct. 26,27,28)
(6) Lower Huron Park (Nov. 2,3,4)
(7) Huron River and Stinchfield Woods (Nov. 9,10,11)
(8) Mud Lake Bog (Nov. 16,17,18)
Thanksgiving Nov. 23,24,25
Field Identification Exam II (Nov. 30, Dec. 1,2)
(9) Saginaw Forests (Dec. 7,8,9)
Please see the coursepack for the species list and habitat information for each field site. Be sure to carefully study the fresh woody plant specimens in the indoor lab, noting key characters as listed inMichigan Trees, prior to each field trip. There will be unannounced quizzes at the field sites to test you on identification. Need to know: Latin species name, family, and common name. Points are taken off for spelling errors.
What to bring to the field: clothing with long sleeves and long pants (for mosquito and poison ivy protection); rubbing alcohol (to break down oils of Poison sumac and Poison ivy before they sink in); insect repellent; large ziploc bag to cover your notes; pocket knife (to look at piths, inner bark, etc); pencil; hand lens.
Below you will find descriptions of the Woody Plants field sites written by Burton V. Barnes, Professor Emeritus of the UM School of Natural Resources. Note that the course will not visit Nichol’s arboretum during fall 2009, and that some of the field sites used for the field exams are not listed. Additional information on the field sites is available in CTOOLS.
(1) MILLER’S WOODS – BEECH-SUGAR MAPLE FOREST Widespread in presettlement and pioneer days, beech-sugar maple forests are today rare in southern Michigan. This forest community dominated the most fertile soils in southern Michigan and was clearcut by pioneers who then cleared the land for agriculture. The dominant species, such as sugar maple (Acer saccharum), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), and basswood (Tilia americana), indicated to the pioneers the presence of excellent agricultural land. Only a few beech-sugar maple woodlots, such as Miller’s Woods, remain today. And these have been invariably “high-graded” (“take the best and leave the rest”) several times since about 1820 when cutting and land clearing began in this area.
The beech-sugar maple community is a late-successional forest in southern Michigan and adjacent parts of Ohio and Indiana. Beech and sugar maple are the characteristic species on these fertile and moderately well-drained sites. This condition of soils with good aeration and that are not too dry and not too wet (moisture is available throughout the growing season) is termed mesic. Furthermore, many of the ecosystems on morainal landforms are also moderately to highly fertile which encourages species such as white ash, basswood, and tulip tree. On such sites, sugar maple and beech generally out-compete all other tree species by casting a dense shade which may prohibit seedling regeneration except that of their own kind. Natural disturbances, however, are always present in the forest, and certain relatively fast‑growing species such as black cherry (Prunus serotina), white ash (Fraxinus americana), northern red oak (Quercus rubra), and bitternut hickory (Carya cardiformis) are able to grow up in the gaps that appear in the forest canopy due to windstorm.
Due to excellent conditions for decomposition, relatively little leaf litter is present on the forest floor. The relatively low amount of this fuel acts to deter ground fires which would kill or severely damage the thin-barked beeches and maples. Thus, in the long run on mesic sites beeches and maples tend tocontrol the forest environment and the regenerating vegetation.
The large maples seen in Miller’s Woods were left in the last logging because of their poor form. Beech was undesirable for timber so it was usually left — often giving us an erroneous impression of the true species composition of the pre-settlement beech-sugar maple forest. Many individuals of bitternut hickory are present in Miller’s Woods. This hickory is the mesic forest representative of the genusCarya. It is seldom found in the dry and dry‑mesic forest where pignut hickories (Carya glabra) is typical dominants.
(2) RADRICK FOREST – OAK-HICKORY FOREST Forest ecosystems dominated by oaks and hickories—Oak-Hickory communities—are best developed in the central Midwest, especially in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas. They extend northward into southern Wisconsin, southern Michigan, and west central Ohio. The Oak-Hickory forests are common in southern Michigan on dry, well-drained, upland sites. The sandy-gravelly or loamy soils are of glacial outwash origin, or derived from glacial till (unsorted glacial material). The species composition changes with soil moisture conditions; upland pin oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis) and black oak (Quercus velutina) are found more often on the sandy, gravelly soils; the proportion of white oak (Quercus alba) and Northern red oak (Quercus rubra) especially increases as soil texture becomes heavier and moisture holding capacity increases.
Thus in southern Michigan, local factors such as topography, microclimate, soil-water availability, soil fertility, and disturbances such as fire and windstorm typically determine the forest composition. In presettlement time, oak‑hickory forests occupied the hotter, drier and fire-prone ridges, slopes, and flats, whereas beech-sugar maple forests occurred on the heavier-textured and therefore moister soils where fire was absent or rare.
Radrick Forest, part of the U. of M. Matthaei Botanical Gardens, is a fine example of old-growth oak‑hickory forest. The primary species in the overstory are white oak, black oak, northern red oak, and shagbark and pignut hickories. The age of the overstory trees is approximately 170 years. This forest is similar in the size and composition of overstory trees to presettlement forests of this site.
Radrick forest occurs partly on gravels and sands washed from nearby glacial moraines. Toward the eastern part of the forest, glacial till deposits occur and “heavier” soils of silt-loam and clay-loam textures (Miami soil series) have developed. This soil is moister than the soils developed from sandier materials to the east. Therefore, the composition of the forest overstory changes noticeably from the western to the eastern part of the area.
The forest was logged heavily during the period 1825-1835. Several sawmills were active in the Fleming Creek area. Fires probably occurred after cutting and periodically in succeeding years until the 1930s. Many of the oaks probably sprouted following cutting and there was undoubtedly seedling or sprout reproduction already in the understory waiting to be released. The mature black cherry trees (Prunus serotina) probably originated soon after logging from understory seedlings or from seed stored in the forest floor. The western part of the forest was used as a gravel pit during the period 1908‑1929. Some large oaks were cut in 1923-24 and some dead trees, particularly American elms, were recently removed.
(3) WATERLOO RECREATION AREA – OAK-HICKORY FOREST The oak-hickory forest ecosystems of the Waterloo Recreation Area occur in hilly topography and upon well-drained, sandy-gravelly soils of theInterlobate Area. This area is so named because it was located between two lobes of the glacier in late-glacial times from 16,000 to about 13,500 years before the present. This area contains much sand and gravel in the form of both ice-contact deposits (materials deposited by water in or adjacent to glacial ice, i.e., in contact with ice) and outwash plains. The hilly terrain is the result of water-laid deposits which formed around, inside of, or on top of blocks of melting ice. The term “ice-contact” is applied to this abruptly-hilly landscape because glacial parent materials of sand, silt, and gravel were deposited by water (i.e., water-laid) in intimate contact with glacial ice. Toward the end of the field trip we pass by several small depressions or kettle holes, the sites of stagnant ice blocks. Along the road, lakes and swamps occupy larger kettle holes. The abrupt changes in site conditions from wet to dry and the concommitant change in vegetation is a characteristic feature of the ice contact landscape. We will be hiking through three of the six oak ecosystems found in the Waterloo Area.
The area was cut-over and burned several times before being acquired by the State of Michigan. Evidence of this disturbance is indicated by the presence of bigtooth aspen, red maple, and multiple-stemmed black, white, and northern red oaks.
The microclimate of the valleys and of north and south slopes affects the composition and growth of trees, shrubs, and ground cover. The northern species, Prince’s Pine (Chimaphila umbellata) is found on the north slope of the ravine we traverse — an unusual occurrence in the typically dry and warm oak-hickory forest. Note other differences in the occurrence of oak species between the north and south slopes as we pass through the valley.
(4) HAVEN HILL – DIVERSE ECOSYSTEMS AND SPECIES Haven Hill is part of the Highland Recreation Area in Oakland County near Milford, Michigan. It was the estate of Edsel Ford. Although the forests were cut-over in the 1800s, there has apparently been little cutting in the last 90 years. This area supports the most diverse ecosystems and species of any area we visit. We study plants in several ecosystems north of Haven Hill Lake.
The area is a mosaic of glacial landforms, including ground moraines and ice-contact terrain of kettles and kames. Unstratified glacial materials (till) that were carried in the bed load of the glacier were deposited by the glacier. Water from melting ice blocks (now kettle lakes, swamps, and depressions) laid sand and gravel layers next to melting ice blocks or in crevasses in the ice. These layers slumped as the ice melted to form the steep-sided hills (kames). Adjacent to the kames are usually one or more kettles.
We will see the aquatic woody plant Decodon verticillatus, water‑willow (not a true willow!), growing in Haven Hill Lake and at the edge of the lake the tree willow Salix amygdaloides (Peachleaf willow, a true willow). Adjacent to the lake is a classic kame and on its top and exposed south and west sides grows the northern pin oak, Quercus ellipsoidalis. This species occupies the driest sites of all Michigan oak species. It is much more common in the high sand plains of the interior of the northern Lower Peninsula. Black oak, Quercus velutina, is associated with it at Haven Hill. In kettle swamps adjacent to the kame, one can find the black ash, Fraxinus nigra, along with other tree and shrub species typical of wet-mesic and wet, poorly drained sites.
A rare ecosystem in southern Michigan is the wet-mesic northern white-cedar swamp. Northern white-cedar, Thuja occidentalis, is common in swamps in northern Michigan and provides shelter and food for the white-tailed deer. The wet-mesic and fertile conditions also are good sites for black ash. In the ground-cover one finds Lonicera canadensis, American fly honeysuckle, a northern species.
Another northern species, Prunus pensylvanica, pin or fire cherry, forms clones in dry, open places. Smith’s hybrid aspen (Populus Xsmithii) is adjacent to the cherry clone and testifies to the disturbed site conditions needed for establishment of both species..
(5) LAWRENCE WOODLOT The site of the Lawrence Woodlot contrasts sharply with the upland terrain of Radrick Forest and the Waterloo area. The woodlot is located on a former lake bed of glacial Lake Whittlesey (an ancestor of Lake Erie). Traveling south from Ann Arbor we descend from the moraines of the Huron-Erie Lobe of the Wisconsin Glacier and cross several sandy beach ridges of the earlier glacial Lake Maumee and then onto the flat, poorly drained lowland that was once the large Lake Whittlesey in late glacial times, at about 12,800-13,000 years before the present.
Silt and clay particles, suspended in waters entering the lake, were widely deposited in the lake bed. Sand was also brought into the lake by streams draining the melting ice adjacent to the lake. The sand spread out over the clay substrate in many places. Today, water from precipitation drains rapidly through the sand but slowly where clay underlies the sand. In addition, the permanent water table is relatively high, especially in the spring.
A significant feature of Lawrence Woodlot and the adjacent field is microrelief. The northern portion of the forest is slightly higher than the general level of the flat plain and has a sandy soil which dries out rapidly. Black oaks dominate the overstory and low sweet blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) is common in the ground layer of plants. The oaks tolerate summer drought and have tap roots that may penetrate to the water table. Plants of the general level of the flat lake bed must be able to tolerate high water levels during the spring and early summer and also droughty conditions that occur in midsummer. Here we find such plants as scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea), blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), shining or winged sumac (Rhus copallina), and black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa). Small depressions, one to three feet below the general surface level, are also characteristic features of the area (see below). Thus, we have a striking mosaic of species tolerant to wet and dry conditions in close proximity to one another — but sharply segregated as to microsite conditions. The woodlot was extensively cut over and the existing stand is probably third- or fourth-growth.
(6) LOWER HURON PARK – FLOODPLAIN HABITAT The river floodplain at Lower Huron Park is highly disturbed, and stream flow has been controlled for years. Thus, one gets an incomplete picture of the site conditions and the range of species that were present in presettlement time in the Huron River valley. Nevertheless, one can see remnants of some zones and many species typical of southern Michigan floodplains.
(7) HURON RIVER AND STINCHFIELD WOODS The assigned species along the Huron River are floodplain species not taken at Lower Huron Park. Quercus imbricaria, shingle oak is a southern species and reaches the northern extremity of its range in southern Michigan. Here it hybridizes readily with black oak to form a distinctive hybrid, Q. Xleana. Shingle oak is also believed to hybridize in Michigan with northern red oak and scarlet oak.
Stinchfield Woods is a 777-acre tract of land just west of the Huron River in northwestern Washtenaw County. The soil is mostly sandy and gravelly and the area we visit was severely grazed by livestock until 1925. The dry site supports a natural oak-hickory forest of black and white oak and Caryaspecies. The dry site and presence of past grazing is indicated by two juniper species, Juniperus communis var. depressa (ground juniper) and J. virginiana (eastern redcedar). The “berry-like” cones of the juniper are eaten by birds and the seeds are widely distributed.
Quercus prinoides, dwarf chinkapin oak, is a plant confined to the driest sandy and gravelly sites of calcareous substrates. Its form is either a small tree or a large shrub. It occasionally forms small, compact clones. Rhus aromatica is also a good shrub indicator of a dry site.
We will take up five of the six genera of the family Pinaceae — Abies, Picea, Larix, Pinus, andPseudotsuga. The sixth genus, Tsuga, will be studied in next week’s lab. Beginning in the late 1920s and continuing until the 1960s plantations of various conifer species were established. Usually, furrows were made in the grazed old fields and two- or three-year-old seedlings were planted by hand. Growth has been slow due to the very dry site conditions.
(8) MUD LAKE BOG The Mud Lake Bog is a classic example of a lake surrounded by a floating mat upon which grows a distinctive community of plants. There is a characteristic zonation in bogs from plants growing in the water to those growing in and forming the mat, to the trees growing at the perimeter of the bog. Often a lowland deciduous swamp is adjacent to the bog — there is a fine deciduous swamp adjacent to the bog at Mud Lake.
Sphagnum mosses and other mosses form the matrix of the mat, generation after generation. In the mosses grow various grasses and woody species such as leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata) and bog rosemary (Andromeda glaucophylla). The mat is highly acidic and many of the species are of the familyEricaceae. These plants tolerate very acid conditions and are also xerophytes. That is, they have various mechanisms to conserve water. Surprisingly, due to the very poor aeration (i.e., lack of oxygen) and low pH of the organic soil, roots can obtain only limited amounts of water.
Tree species of the bog site include black spruce (Picea mariana) and tamarack (Larix laricina). These are dominant species of the boreal forest of the far north, but occur in southern Michigan where cold and wet microsites occur. Where the lower branches of black spruce are pressed into the sphagnum mat by snow they are gradually overgrown by moss. Eventually the branches take root in the organic matter and the branch may someday become a tree itself. This phenomenon is termed “layering” and is a form of vegetative reproduction typical of conifers such as spruces and true firs.
Besides being a very wet environment, the bog (a kettle landform) is lower topographically than the surrounding terrain. Into it drains cold air. Thus, the bog plants live in a mini-boreal environment. Very gradually the lake is filled in, and succession may proceed to the point where black spruce and tamarack dominate the area formerly occupied by the floating mat. However, because of the very wet, cold, and acid conditions, succession proceeds very slowly.
Adjacent to the bog is the deciduous swamp. It is dominated by yellow birch, red maple, American elm (now mostly dead), and black ash. The typical swamp shrubs include winterberry, poison sumac, mountain holly (Nemopanthus mucronata), high-bush blueberry, common elder, and wild black currant. The soil of the swamp is muck (finely decomposed organic matter) that is neutral or slightly basic in soil reaction. Mounds in the swamp are created by roots of overstory trees or the overturned root systems of wind-thrown trees. The top of these mounds is acidic and supports Vaccinium corymbosum and other acid-tolerant species.
(9) SAGINAW FOREST Saginaw Forest is an 80-acre property on Liberty Road, west of Ann Arbor, that is owned by the University of Michigan. It has been an educational and research source for nearly 100 years. At the time the Forestry Department was established at the turn of the Century, one of the immediate needs was land on which forestry operations, to meet the needs of the times, could be carried out and for instruction and research as well. This need was met by the Honorable Arthur Hill of Saginaw, Michigan, a lumberman and Regent of the University. He purchased this tract in 1903 and deeded it to the University with the stipulation that it was to be used as a forestry demonstration and experimental area. The deed also specified that the official name should be “The Saginaw Forestry Farm.” By 1919, the development of plantations had reached such a stage that the name, “farm,” was inappropriate. So it was changed by the Regents at the request of the forestry faculty to “The Saginaw Forest.”
Planting of the areas that had been in agriculture began the spring of 1904 and was completed in 1915. Later, some of the species proved to be unsuited to the area, and were replaced with different species. The total area of experimental plantations is 55 acres; the balanced of the area is occupied by the Third Sister Lake (10-acres), wetlands surrounding the lake, roads, buildings, and a small arboretum in which species from the southern Appalachian Mountains were planted (yellow buckeye, cucumber tree, tuliptree, sweet gum, Kentucky coffee tree). In 1915, a stone cabin was built as a storage place and shelter for classes and work-crews during inclement weather. Later it was converted into a small residence for the caretaker.
The Chair of the Forestry Department in the early years was Professor “Daddy” Roth, a forester from the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. He laid out the forest plantations in a systematic grid of Blocks and Lots — just like a traditional German forest. It was here that the first decade of forestry students struggled with grub hoes and spades to establish the first plantations. Here they enjoyed the fellowship of the annual “Camp Fire” in the fall and the weekend-long “Field Day.” Students took the trolley car out West Liberty and walked from the end of the line to Saginaw Forest. The stone campfire circle near the cabin is dedicated to Professor Dow Baxter who, from the 1950s until his death in 1965, kept the Campfire tradition alive by vivid accounts of the earliest activities of students in Saginaw Forest. The campfire tradition has been kept by a series of student clubs and organizations representing the changing student body and direction of the School.
Two major physiographic features dominate the Saginaw Forest landscape. The southern two-thirds of the property is part of the Ft. Wayne moraine, a large feature containing heavy (clayey), unsorted glacial drift, termed till. This was the area that was primarily devoted to agriculture at the time of purchase. The northern third of the area is ice-contact terrain. A large ice block was situated here with several others (forming a string of “sister” lakes) about 14,000 years ago to disintegrate slowly. The area occupied by this ice block is now the kettle lake and the wetlands that nearly surround it. To the south of the ice block, sands and gravels were laid by moving water in contact with the ice block — hence the term ice-contact. The rolling land south of Third Sister Lake was farmed and then planted to eastern white pine in 1904. This stand is the second oldest surviving pine plantation in Michigan and probably the third oldest in the USA.
The landforms gave rise to a wide variety of soil types (from deep sands to very heavy clays); 15 different soil types are mapped. In 1966, a list of the woody species was compiled by Terry L. Sharik, first TA in the Woody Plants course (1965-1969). At that time 125 woody plant species, representing 64 genera and 35 families were represented. Of these, 27 species are not native to Michigan. Many exotic species have naturalized in Saginaw Forest, including Norway maple, sweet cherry, tatarian and Maack’s honeysuckles, black alder, common privet, and buckthorn. A re-inventory of all woody species and a complete plant list for the area is certainly needed.
Saginaw Forest continues as a natural outdoor laboratory for teaching and limited kinds of terrestrial and aquatic research. It is one of the last remaining semi-natural tracts near Ann Arbor on the moraine landform; virtually all land is developed or in agriculture. There is periodically considerable pressure for the University to sell or otherwise dispose of Saginaw Forest. Saginaw Forest is not a “natural” forest by any means. However, it is probably as close as we can come near Ann Arbor to saving a landscape that is historically “ours” for teaching, long-term ecological research, and the appreciation of its intrinsic value by generations of future students.
