Lower figure shows Cottonwood fifteen feet in circumference, growing on hilltop near south edge of the Reservation. This is the largest tree on the area. Several exceptionally large black oaks, chestnut oaks, and elms are present on the same hilltop. Photograph taken in December, 1954, by H. S. Fitch.
PLATE 7
PLATE 8
Large American elm at edge of bottomland field in west part of the Reservation. Photograph taken on April 2, 1955, by H. S. Fitch.
Cornus Drummondi.—This dogwood is the most abundant tree on the area. However, it scarcely reaches the size of a tree. Most mature examples are 1½ to 3½ inches in trunk diameter, and rarely more than twelve feet high. Dogwood grows in greatest abundance on dry rocky slopes where other trees are scarce. In small areas it may be the dominant tree, often closely associated with chinquapin oak and red elm. In parts of the woodland where there are larger trees, dogwood may form an understory, its development depending largely on the amount of light passing through the upper leaf canopy. Where the canopy is dense and nearly continuous, dogwood tends to be eliminated by shading. In some situations where forest has recently closed in, most of the dogwoods are dead or dying. Especially on formerly cut-over north slopes, where oak and hickory have sprung up in a dense stand 20 feet high, with a thick canopy, most of the dogwoods have been eliminated.
On the remaining hillside prairie near the northwest corner of the Reservation, dogwood is the most prominent of the trees and shrubs encroaching onto the area since it has been protected from fire—a period of approximately 20 years. There are dense thickets of dogwood along the borders of the prairie and the woodland edge.
The white-eyed vireo and Bell vireo both forage and nest in thickets of dogwood and other shrubs.