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Trees of the Eastern Temperate Forest
    A tree recognition & forest ecology course
Arc of Appalachia Preserve System
Southern Ohio
June 27 - July 2, 2010    FILLED FOR 2010

Although the Eastern temperate forest can claim well over 200 species of trees, learning just 40 to 45 of them will allow you to travel anywhere into the forest heartland - from New York to Tennessee - and identify with accuracy 90-95% of the standing trees you will see. In fact, you could even travel to Europe and Eastern temperate Asia and be able to recognize nearly all the trees by at least their family and genera. This is exactly the goal of this course: to teach you the majority of the common, widely distributed broadleaf and associated evergreen trees in the Eastern temperate forest by both common name, and, if you are really motivated, by Latin. We will be concentrating not only on the forms of the leaves, as a clue to ID,  but particularly on bark characteristics. We will practice being in real-life situations where the forest trees are towering above your head and you must employ these other skills to identify them than having their leaves in your hands. You will also learn trees' ecological relationships, their qualities of wood, their beauty and crown shape, wood craft and folklore. We will be taking a habitat and age-successional approach to tree identification, so that your knowledge will gain depth and application. By the end of this program, with a bit of mental effort and repetitive practice, you will be able to identify from 25-70 tree species, depending on what level of mastery you choose to aspire. We will nurture and encourage the beginner (how well we remember being there!), and push the experts to higher mastery. In addition to tree ID you will also learn the read the forest's cryptic story - gleaning from just a quick glance tremendous information about the it's soils, age, and history, and health. We hope this course is the beginning or a continuation of a lifelong avocation. The course will be held at the 2000-acre Highlands Nature Sanctuary in southern Ohio, a forest covering three major physiographic regions and boasting outstanding species diversity. The Highlands is the largest of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System's thirteen preserves, and its main headquarters. Lodging and meals provided in one of the Highlands' beautiful group lodges. For more information click here. 

  The single most important thing a person can do for the sake of the Eastern forest is to learn the predominant trees. With just a bit of earnest effort, you can achieve the foundations of this useful skill in just one week's time, successfully joining a group of citizens making up  less than 1% of the population. Although most Americans can recognize over 300 brand logos by sight , few can name more than one or two trees on the species level. In fact, you could say that a person steeped in forest-literacy  is just about as rare as an old-growth forest! This course is an effort to begin adjusting these statistics because knowledge is the first step to positive conservation action.
  Although the Eastern temperate forest can claim well over 200 species of trees, learning just 40 to 45 of them will allow you to travel anywhere into the forest heartland -- from New York to Tennessee -- and identify with accuracy 90 to 95% of the standing trees you will see. In fact, you could even travel to Europe and Eastern temperate China and Japan and be able to recognize nearly all the trees by at least their genera.

  This is the goal of the course - to teach you to identify by leaf and secondary characteristics a minimum of (depending on your background) 25-45 species of common, widely distributed broadleaf and associated evergreen trees in the Eastern temperate forest. The name, however, is only the beginning of this course. Associated with each tree species name you also learn its ecological relationships, the qualities of its wood, its beauty and shape, wood craft and lore. We will be taking a habitat and successional approach to tree identification so that your knowledge will gain depth and application. By the end of this program, with a bit of mental effort and repetitive practice, you will not only be able to identify trees, but by learning the forest "alphabet" of individual species you be trained to begin to read the forest's hidden script -- gleaning from a quick glance a wealth of information about the forest's soils, history, age and health. This will be the beginning of what we hope is a lifetime of increasing skill. Like any language, mastering the linguistics of nature requires on-going review, observation, and practice. This course is hopefully the beginning of a lifelong avocation.
  At course's end participants will gain a certificate of completion, and, if desired, an optional proficiency record. Each student will be developing during the course a tree journal for his or her permanent assistance and reference. Each student is required to bring at least one tree identification book.

 Location: This course is sponsored at the 2000-acre Highlands Nature Sanctuary in southern Ohio, the largest of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System's 11 preserves, and the Arc's main headquarters. The Sanctuary's central natural feature is the Rocky Fork Gorge, a vertical walled dolomite canyon that is lush with ferns, liverworts and mosses. The preserve region is a natural paradise of rare and common ecosystems and successional stages of forest growth. Within a day's walk or short drive, we can visit  old growth forests, abandoned farms reverting into successional communities, karst topography with caves and springs, boreal remnant species from the ice age, fens, wetlands, limestone bluffs, sandstone/shale Appalachian hills, and nearly every tree species that can be found in the Midwest. Fourteen miles of beautiful hiking trails exist within the Sanctuary's boundaries. Click here for Rocky Fork Gorge natural history information. Click here for The Appalachian Forest Museum, the Arc's visitor gateway. For the history of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, click here. For the history of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System, click here.  Photos by Larry Henry.

 

Things you will want to know about the Tree Course......

      including Registration, travel and Meal info

                            
Registration includes: Five nights lodging at the Sanctuary, four days of curriculum plus two part-days, all meals, professional leaders for all trips, all curriculum costs and admission fees. Certification of completion. This workshop is run in a folk school manner, with participants sometimes helping out with modest last minute meal preparation, and dependably with dish cleanup.

Please plan for the following expenses in addition to your registration cost: Transportation to trailheads and your assigned lodge, and field trips, averaging 20-40 minutes of total driving a day.

Registration Fee for Event. $495.00 per person for double occupancy lodging, and $645.00 for single room lodging. If you don't need lodging, the cost per person with meals is $395.00. If you do not have a partner but want us to help you look for one for a shared room, please sign up for single room lodging, and request that we look on your behalf. If we find a parson to share your room with you of the same gender, we will notify you and will reduce your fee to the shared price, refunding any money that is due you at that time. Alternatively, you can register for the shared price, and cancel if we can't find you a roommate. Chances are, we will be able to.

Books: Please bring at least one, or better yet two or more, tree ID books with you. Our list of recommended books can be found here.

Lodging: Lodging will be provided at one of two historic and fully remodeled group lodges at the Highlands Nature Sanctuary. Both lodges are extremely handsome and have memorable ambience. Beechcliff is approximately one mile from the Appalachian Forest Museum. Ravenwood, which is a lovely light-filled historic mill house and a bit more modern, is 15 minutes away. Both lodges have bathrooms shared on the hall, and bedrooms with two single beds.

Meals: Delicious and healthy meals made are signature services of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary staff and volunteers. Both vegetarians and meat-eaters will be accommodated. Breakfasts and suppers will be ample, with lunch a bit lighter so as not overload you with five days of memorable eating. Meal components emphasize foods that are fresh, hand-made, relatively unrefined, and when possible, organic. This course is run in a folk school manner, with participants sometimes helping out with modest last minute meal preparation, and dependably with dish cleanup.

Cancellation Policy: If you are registering before April 20th, a $200.00 deposit/person will hold each reservation. Full payment is due after that time. Sorry, there is no guarantee of refunds for cancellations after April 20th. Please try to find someone to fill your place.

Location and Maps. Please click here.

Trip Size: Trip size will be limited to 20 participants.

Airports and Nearest Large Town. Our two nearest airports are almost equidistant. Columbus is approximately 1.75 hours away. Cincinnati is about the same, maybe 5-10 minutes further.

Insects, ticks, and other natural challenges.
  Flying insects aren't much of a problem in at the Sanctuary. Sometimes just at dusk we will get a few mosquitoes. There will likely be some ticks in the open fields. They are easily noticed and removed, almost always before they attach. They are docile and slow-moving. If you aren't used to them, we'll help you emotionally adjust if you are willing to try! Depending on the season, we may see none or many in the fields. No special clothing or protection is needed. Unless you are unusually sensitive to insects, you probably don't need insect repellant. If in doubt, bring it.

Physical Condition Required Participants should be able to hike sustainably over uneven ground and occasionally off trail for an average of 3 miles a day, and be able to be on your feet most of the day. If you have the capacity to occasionally "push" up to six miles a day without serious discomfort, you will be able to handle the needs of this trip, which will usually be considerably less than that. Some up and downhill hiking will be included, as well as walking over uneven ground.

Things to Bring Bring informal outdoor clothing for both wet and dry weather. Sunscreen and a light-weight broad-banded hat to cover your head. Hiking boots and at least one pair of lighter shoes you can walk in. Daily change of socks. Casual shoes and casual wear for evenings and time off. Both shorts and lightweight pants. Flashlight --VERY important. It's dark here at night as we keep night lights to a minimum. Insect repellant optional, see above. Your own first aid kit as you think appropriate to your needs. Cell phone might be handy, though we don't get much coverage right at our lodging areas except for Sprint and Nextel. Highway 50 seems to give coverage to most carriers. There are land lines in the main group lodges for which you could use long distance phone cards to call out. Don't forget some pocket money.

More Questions? Call the Arc of Appalachia Field Trip Coordinator, Director Nancy Stranahan at 937-365-0101, or write her at director@arcofappalachia.org.

 The Appalachian Forest School is presented by the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System.    

Leaders

    Nancy Stranahan, Co-Director and Co-founder of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System is the primary organizer and teacher of this course. She worked as an interpretive naturalist much of her life. Majoring in natural resource interpretation and secondary science education at Ohio State University, she went on to work for Ohio State Parks, serving her ten years there as SW Ohio Regional Naturalist, Chief Naturalist, and Public Information Administrator. She moved into the private sector for the next twenty years, co-founding a vegetarian cafe and bakery in downtown Columbus in the historic North Market downtown district.

    Brad Gray, founder of Rome Hill Studios, is a wood-artist who will be teaching the The Art Form of Little known Wood  class on Wednesday night. Brad Gray has been working with native wood all of his life, building both functional and creative furniture and wood art pieces, including musical instruments. His workshop, nestled under tall trees in the deep hills of southern Ohio, looks like it comes out of a hobbit movie set for Lord of the Rings! Brad's work is distinctive in that he doesn't limit himself to the usual "mainstream" wood from oaks, walnut, maple and poplar. He is a creative opportunist. When the dogwoods had a die-back a few years ago, they went into his wood reserve. If an apple tree falls in his neighbor's yard, it is grist for the mill. If a persimmon gets blown over on the highway, chances are it will make its way through the network into Brad's woodshed. Milling, planing, and drying all occur on his lot, and he is just as likely to make use of locust, red cedar, sycamore and sassafras as the more commonly recognized woods. Brad will share with you some of his wood lore, and his lifelong love affair with the grain. He will give all participants samples of a variety of native wood, which you can oil and keep to help remember the rarely-appreciated  beauty and diversity to be found among our native forest wood. At program's end, Brad will treat you to another vocation of his, playing music! In this case, with hand-crafted musical instruments. For more information see www.romehillstudio.com

Schedule

Day 1, Sunday, June 27, 2010
Introduction & Welcome

1:00 - 3:30  pm Check-in at Respective Lodges: Beechcliff or Ravenwood.   Go directly to your assigned lodge. Freshen up after your travel, and then head to the front desk of the Appalachian Forest Museum to pick up your registration packet, which will include a trail map to the Sanctuary. Feel free to hike any of the Sanctuary's beautiful fourteen miles of trails prior to our 4:00 gathering time. There are short but stunning  trails by the Museum if your time is limited.

4:00 pm Welcome and Introductions.  We will gather at the Appalachian Forest Museum's upstairs meeting room to welcome and introduce the course to all participants.

6:00 pm Pre-Dinner Forest Poem
6:00 pm Dinner at the Appalachian Forest Museum. We're going Indian tonight! Serving Aloo Palak (curried vegetables) on Rice, raita (cucumber salad) and poppy seed cake for dessert with Chai tea.
6:45-7:15 Clean-up

7:15 pm  Home Sweet Biome, A Powerpoint Presentation on the World's Most Invisible Biome.  Here's the big picture of the temperate broadleaf forest -- the biome we will be immersing ourselves in this week, and why it is so poorly recognized. We will study its world significance and geographic distribution, and concentrate on its regional expressions in the Eastern United States -- including what makes the North American representative unique among its sister forests.

 
 Day 2, Monday, June 28, 2010
Focus: The Trees of the Rich Mixed-Mesophytic Forest

8:00 am Breakfast at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Turkey sausage on the grill, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, orange juice, grilled English muffins. Coffee and Hot tea.
8:45 - 9:15 Community Clean-up & Group Pictures

9:30 am Mixed-Mesophytic Old-Growth . Learning the major trees of the mixed mesophytic forest: beech, maple, hemlock, the ashes, black and white oak, tulip poplar --- and their rich understory associates. We will examine what makes a mature forest identifiable from a disturbed one, and the idealized condition of a true old growth forest. The dynamics of old-growth gap succession will be learned and discussed, as well as animals associated with older forest stands. For this focus we will walk the rich forests in the heart of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, on the Big Beech Trail and Etawah Woods Trail.

12:30 p.m. Lunch at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Hearty Cobb salad with our our signature Sanctuary dressing, with sliced chicken breast on the side. Lightly Sweetened Tea.

1:00 to 4:00 pm Looking Up! In the afternoon we will walk down Cave Road to another mature forest across from Hermitage Lodge to anchor the skills of identifying our morning trees -- this time with particular emphasis on bark. Don't forget your binoculars. Big trees cannot be dependably identified with a leaf in the hand, as they are much to tall to examine the canopy that clearly. We will practice identification skills that need to be employed in mature forest environs.

6:00 pm Pre-Dinner Forest Poem
6:00 pm Dinner at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Italiano! Lasagna -- our own memorable recipe, with broccoli-raisin salad, and strawberries & honey for dessert with a dab of whipped cream.

6:45 pm After-Dinner Forest Literacy Quiz
6:45-7:15 pm  Clean-up

          
Day 3, Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Focus: A Lesson in Succession & Floodplain Forests

8:00 am Breakfast at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Baked oatmeal with brown sugar, dried fruit & nuts, orange juice, banana bread. Coffee and Hot tea.
8:45 - 9:15 Community Clean-up and Packing up our Lunches

9:15 - 12:30 pm  Kamelands -- Outstanding Oak forest & Examples of Succession in Action. Kamelands is one of the Sanctuary's lushest trails for forest diversity and immense old oak trees. In the reverting old farm fields at the beginning of the trail we will learn many of our earliest succession trees -- locusts, osage orange, cherry, and red cedar;  and the non-native plants pose such challenges  to natural, native succession. As we approach the old forest that borders the cliffs of the Rocky Fork Creek, we will see natural succession in positive, uninterrupted action. Then, we will enter the woods proper and review our often-challenging oaks and hickories, as well as learn some of the most important understory trees -- including two hornbeams, and the unusual Leatherwood.

12:30 p.m. Picnic at TES. We will drive over to TES Farm, our intern quarters, for a lunch of  egg salad sandwiches, granola bars, and apples.

1:00 pm River Forests. In the afternoon we will drive to the much larger waterway known as Paint Creek, that drains into the historic Scioto River. We will visit the Paint at an impressive bend of the river where the water has carved into a steep shale hillside known as Copperas Mountain. Here you will see an iconic example of a floodplain forest, dominated by American elms, green ash, cottonwood, and silver maple. The shale hillside is so steep that just a few feet from the river you will also see a completely opposite forest ecosystem -- an extremely dry nearly vertical shale cliff peppered with chestnut oaks and native scrub pines.

6:00 pm Pre-Dinner Forest Poem
6:00 pm Dinner at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Tonight is Mexican! We are serving build-your-own taco salad with optional ground beef, fried beans and onions, salsa, grated cheddar cheese, red bell peppers, and sour cream over lettuce, with taco chips on the side. Flan for dessert with caramel sauce.
6:45-7:15 pm  Clean-up

7:15 - 8:15 pm Brad Gray presents: Going with the Grain, Native wood as an art form. Brad Gray hails from Rome, Ohio, located due south of the Sanctuary near the great Ohio River. Appropriately, Brad lives amidst Ohio's densest, most contiguous forest land -- land that is also the most dissected in elevation. There could not be a better location for Brad to perform his vocation. Nestled in the deep woods on the edge of a lovely ravine is his workshop, where he makes his living producing a wide variety of artistic carpentry items completely out of a diversity of native woods-- everything from rocking chairs to musical instruments. Brad will share the often unrecognized beauty that radiates from the wood of many of our native trees. He will be bringing lots of wood samples for students to sand and oil -- to take home with them as mementos or to use as book markers.

 
Day 4, Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Focus: From Wet to Dry: Southern Bottomland Forest & Prairie-Influenced Forest

8:00 am Breakfast at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Blueberry pancakes with REAL maple syrup!!  Coffee and Hot tea.
8:45 - 9:15 Community Clean-up

9:30  Pick up our Ordered Lunches at JR's -- A Mennonite Grocery

9:45 am Trip to the Bottomland Forest of the Little Rocky Fork. We will be car-pooling today approximately 40 miles to one of the Arc's lovely preserves known as the Gladys Riley Golden Star Lily Preserve. Here we move firmly into sandstone/shale bedrock, out of our now familiar limestone. Because we are further south and close to the Ohio River, we will see immense sweetgum trees and the rare white walnut, as well as many trees species that are now (thankfully) in review. Be sure to wear your tevas or tennis shoes as we will be wading the Little Rocky Fork, a tributary of the Scioto Brush Creek.

12:30 p.m. Lunch

Kamama Prairie, one of the Arc's fourteen preserves, is an outstanding natural area, showcasing a drought-resistant oak-hickory forest that ordinarily would be more "at home" considerably west of Ohio. Here we can work on the hickories and oaks, including post oak, pignut hickory, mockernut hickory, black oak, blackgum, and several of the drought-resistant woody shrubs including hazelnut, ninebark, and fragrant sumac.  If we have time, we will stop at Serpent Serpent Mound on the way home, managed by the Arc on behalf of the Ohio Historical Society. Serpent Mound has many beautiful specimen trees -- where we can pick up some interesting lowland specimens including shellbark hickory, black maple, and Shumard Oak.    

6:00 pm Dinner at Giovanni's Pizza. After dinner, we will drive home through Bainbridge, where we will enjoy pizza and side salads at Giovanni's, our staff's favorite local pizza place. You can't eat at Bainbridge without sampling its hallmark dessert, which just might be the very best cheesecake in the world, or so the undisputed sign out front claims. We'll stop by this historic old home, built out of southern Ohio rainbow sandstone, and sample from an assortment plate so you can decide for yourselves. Most people after eating it, say, "You know, this just might be the best cheesecake in the world."

 
Day 5, Thursday, July 1, 2010
 Appalachian Hill-country Forests -- A Lesson in Succession

8:00 am Breakfast at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Quiche, bran muffins, orange juice, tea and coffee.
8:45 - 9:15 Community Clean-up 

Stop by  JR's -- A Mennonite Grocery to pick up lunch

Spruce Hill.  Spruce Hill Preserve lies in the exceptionally scenic region river corridor known as Paint Valley not far from Copperas Mountain. The hill’s steep bluffs border Paint Creek as it winds through the ancient wide and fertile river valley cut by an immense pre-glacial river system that was once as large as the Mississippi. The Appalachian hillside forest of Spruce Hill is densely canopied and is dominated by red maples, basswood, red and black oaks, sugar maples, tulip poplars, hickories, and white ash.  Like its sister hilltop earthworks site to the south, Fort Hill, the top of Spruce Hill is a flat-topped mesa--and both boast prehistoric earthworks built over 2000 years ago by a culture known as the Hopewell, which we will see the ancient evidence of. The forest will provide an excellent review for the week, and when we work our way to the top, we will be rewarded with an unusual wetlands dominated by swamp white oak.

6:30 pm Dinner at Paxton's Restaurant in Bainbridge. Except for our vegetarians who will be ordering off the menu, we end our week with some old-fashioned Highland County country cooking at one of our time-honored restaurant establishments. We will be served broasted chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, and homemade delicious apple pie.

Here's your last chance for studying. Tomorrow is our tree quiz!
 
Day 6, Friday, July 2, 2010
 Closure
8:00 am Breakfast at the Appalachian Forest Museum. Cold cereals and fresh fruit, soy milk and regular milk, juices
8:45 - 9:15 Community Clean-up

9:30  Tree Quiz.  We will take a pleasant stroll around the Appalachian Forest Museum testing your hard-earned knowledge by presenting to you 45 trees to identify. Then we will go over the answers together, and you will check your own answers. Certificates will be awarded to all participants, and certificates of honor to those with exceptionally high marks.

11:30 Tea and snacks to help send you on your way.
 

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