I visited my new forest in spring and explored it on four separate days, trying to identify as many tree species as possible. I would call this forest an "Oak-Magnolia-Maple-Hickory" forest as this describes the genera of the canopy trees that dominate it.
Large or Huge Trees These are the largest trees that dominate this forest: Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana), Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra), Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), Fraser Magnolia (Magnolia fraseri), possibly Mockernut Hickory (Carya tomentosa), and possibly Red Hickory (Carya ovalis). The most common large trees are the first four - Chestnut Oak, Tulip Tree, Northern Red Oak, and Red Maple. A couple of other large trees are much rarer - White Oak (Quercus alba) which I only spotted by drone, and Blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica) of which I only found one decent sized specimen (but a magnificent one!). Leaves I collected from the two dominant Magnolia species, Tulip Tree and Fraser Magnolia, are shown below.
Some of the Tulip Trees tower above the forest...
The Fraser Magnolias of intermediate age have a sandpapery bark.
Leaves I collected from the two dominant Oak species, Chestnut Oak and Northern Red Oak, are shown below. The leaf of the Northern Red Oak is a shade leaf. The lobes of the upper canopy leaves are more deeply divided.
There are some huge Chestnut Oaks in this forest. The one in the picture below is at the western boundary and has a massive trunk (13 ft 7 inches in circumference at chest height) and one huge lateral branch.
There are also plenty of towering specimens of Northern Red Oak.
A Red Maple leaf I collected is shown below. This was a huge deeply divided leaf which almost made me think it was a Silver Maple, but Silver Maples don't grow at these elevations (only up to 2000 feet). I have come to the conclusion that the shade leaves of Red Maples look like this. There are some big specimens - when they get really big, their bark becomes dark and a little shaggy.
While most of the Red Maples had fully leafed out, this one had just started and was loaded with bright red seeds. I flew the drone above it to get this picture.
The Hickories were confusing and I found three types of leaves that look quite different from each other. The first two leaves had hairless rachis and undersides, whereas the one at the bottom was quite velvety.
There are also differences in the bark, with one type of Hickory having tighter bark than the other type which is significantly more peeling. The one with the peeling bark, according to what I could glean from the internet, may be a Red Hickory (Carya ovalis) which is closely related to Pignut Hickory (Carya glabra) but has more peeling bark and red rachis. I measured this particular Red Hickory at 122 feet+ tall!
An example of a leaf and the bark of the Blackgum Tree are shown below. The "alligator skin" bark is characteristic of Blackgum.
I could not locate a White Oak tree from ground level but got some great pictures with the drone. The leaves were just emerging and were completely white from above, looking like a tree covered in white flowers from a distance.
Medium-Sized Trees The only ones that really fall into this category are Sourgum (Oxydendrum arboreum) and Sweet Birch (Betula lenta). There are many of these in the forest. A leaf and bark of the Sweet Birch are shown below. The Sourgums were only starting to leaf out so I could not collect any leaves.
Small Trees & Shrubs There are several species of small trees / large shrubs in the forest. Some of the ones I found can normally reach a large size but I only found small specimens. These are Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), Mountain Silverbell (Halesia tetraptera), American Basswood (Tilia americana), American Chestnut (Castanea dentata), Yellow Buckeye (Aesculus flava), Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), possibly White Ash (Fraxinus americana) although it could have been a small shrub with similar leaves, and Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus). The Black Locust previously existed as common medium-sized trees in this forest, but for an unknown reason every single one of them seemed to have died, leaving only decaying trunks with thick ropey bark falling off and fungus growing from the wood. In the spring visit there only seemed to be saplings of this species. The American Chestnut is a tragedy of an introduced fungus from east Asia that killed almost all the large Chestnut trees in North America, the so-called "chestnut blight". In my forest only small saplings grow and they will almost certainly become infected and die before they reach any significant size. Leaves of Mountain Silverbell and American Basswood are shown below.
The slender trunk of a young Basswood tree is shown below.
Leaves of American Chestnut and Yellow Buckeye are shown below.
The largest Yellow Buckeye tree I found during this visit is shown below - pretty spindly.
The leaves of Black Cherry and potential White Ash are shown below.
Other small trees are naturally small, such as Sassafras, Striped Maple, Alternate-leaf Dogwood, and Witch-Hazel. Pictures of these leaves are shown below.
The slender trunk of a Striped Maple tree is shown below.
Rhododendrons were blooming everywhere. The flowers ranged in color from white to pale pink. I think the predominant flowering species at this time of year must be the Carolina Rhododendron (Rhododendron carolinianum) - first two pictures below. The third picture may be a Catawba Rhododendron (Rhododendron catawbiense), or it could just be a very pink version of a Carolina Rhododendron.
From top to bottom, leaves of Carolina Rhododendron (1) pinkish version; (2) white version; and (3) Rosebay Rhododendron
A couple of other flowers were out. Showy Orchid and Trillium.
Now I have a drone with a much better camera and got some great shots of the forest from above!