Williams Woods - Charlotte Vermont

Williams Woods is one of the last remaining Clayplain forests in the Champlain Valley. Having much clay in the soil means that the soil is probably very nutrient rich which supported much farm land in the past. Several sources will tell you that this forest is a "mature" stand but through out our walk last week, we were unsuccessful in finding more than just a few trees in any one area that would be considered old growth. The forest was mostly flat with a few areas that had a "pit and mound" topography that occurs as a result of the pit that fallen trees make and the mound the results from the roots that are now out of the ground. The dominant tree species in this stand are white oak, red oak, red maple, white pine, shagbark hickory, and white ash. Other less dominant species were hemlock, bur oak, sugar maple and beach trees.

This picture shows the result of a "downburst storm" that happened in 2007 during the summer. We learned that this phenomenon is a very localized column of sinking air that could level a trailer park or fatally bring down a low flying plane. The storm brought down several trees in just one spot in the Williams Woods which was misleading at first as to what the cause of this random spot of fallen trees might have been.

This cleared area is and was most likely used as farm land in the past. At the forest edge before the field begins, there is a line of old growth oak trees that probably delineated a property line.

This bundle of sticks and twigs probably assisted in making property lines as this area has a lack or rocks that would be used to create a rock wall.

There were several beach trees in this forest and most of them had a strange bark that made them look almost unrecognizable from their usual smooth bark characteristic. We were told that a small white insect, smaller than 1/16th of an inch burrows holes into the bark which allows a fungus to move deeply into the bark and grow, creating this rough and broken-looking texture.

Another stand we walked into later in our hike gave off a different feel with a strictly white pine forest. White pines are pioneer species that can only survive with an abundance of light. This dominance of species probably meant that this area was cleared for farming or transportation in the last 100 years, another clue of this was the train that we heard that wasn't more than a couple hundred meters away. 

We also saw several hemlock stands through out the forest. Towards the end of our hike, we found this enormous grandfather hemlock that was probably a few hundred years old.

Jericho Research Forest

Jericho research forest is former agricultural land like much of the Champlain Valley. Many of the old roads that were used to move farming equipment are still present. Larch trees were planted in the past when it was thought to be a good idea to build planes out of Larch tree wood. This idea became less popular as metal and aluminium planes were created, leaving these larch trees in the Jericho forest stand. Acquired by the University of Vermont in 1941, it is managed by the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and is utilized extensively by the Forestry Department for both research and education.

One of the dominant tree species in the Jericho research forest is the white pine. White pine does well in abundant sunlight and was successful during regrowth after this land was clear cut with little competition for sunlight. This pictures shoes white pine trees towering over the other tree species.

Another dominant tree species in Jericho research forest is hemlock. An interesting fact and advantage that the hemlock tree has over other species is that it can remain dormant in its growth for several years if conditions are not ideal. This advantage might be a reason as to why this tree is abundant in this forest. The tree in this picture is small. It could be anywhere from 5 years old to 60 years old!

This is an interesting area where there appears to be several hundred small early growth Ash trees. All of these trees sprouted from a single tree and are using one root system off of that single tree.

This is an extremely tall white pine tree.  This tree could be around 150-200 years old.

This is a huge oak tree which is a more rare species for this forest. There is a good chance that this tree could be a "grandfather tree" with the impressive age of roughly 200-300 years old. There is a small fence near the tree which is a clue that it could be a grandfather tree and needs to be protected.

Centennial Woods
Centennial Woods is one of Vermont's nine natural areas and consists of about 70 acres of conifer stands. There are several different natural communities in Centennial woods such as streams, Hemlock forests, marsh lands, meadow and Hardwood forests. This area has a history of being farmed like most of the Champlain Valley. You can still find drastically different natural communities just a path apart and old barbed wires that have grown into older trees. The Hemlock forests have some of the oldest trees in Vermont. UVM dining services used to dump food waste from the dining halls into the stream that runs through Centennial Woods. This area used to be used as a "dump" area where people would put their old desks and furniture until the UVM environmental department decided to manage the area, although it's is not protected from being developed in the future. There is a large retention pond located behind the the Jeffords parking lot to collect the runoff water that would normally wash chemicals from the cars parked in the lot straight into Centennial woods.

This picture shows how heavily this natural area is used being so close to urban areas and with students coming thorough for labs. Students hang out here and sometimes misuse the area.

This picture shows the impact that farming in the past has had on the natural area resulting in areas of younger growth. This area could have also been cleared due to power lines being put up which intersect heavily though out Centennial Woods.

This area shows a large white pine stand which is one of the dominant tree species in Centennial Woods.

This is a little peek of running water that is usually traveling through Centennial Woods.

Shelburne Farms
Shelburne farms is located in the Champlain Valley. Then thousand years ago this area was under a glacier that shifted rocks and moved soils. This shifting made for great farmland in the Champlain Valley. Many people were farming during this time in the 1800s including the land that is now Shelburne farms. As technology improved with steel plows in the 1870s, and refrigerated railroad cars in the 1900s, individual family farms were being abandoned and turned back into old growth forests.
This is a picture of an old tractor, symbolic of the intensive farming that this land used to be used for.


The barn used to be used to house cows in a large quantity. Some farming still happens :)

This picture shows the design that the landscape architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, designed to look like the islands of Lake Champlain. (Islands of trees in a "lake" of grass)