Basswood & Beech

The fundamental and practical distinction between coniferous and deciduous forests is useful (and was used herein), but precise, non-arbitrary "lines" are impossible when presenting and discussing forest range types in the eastern half of the continent. This is especially the case when climax or potential natural vegetation is used as the basis for forest types (ie. when cover types, or the more specific management cover types, are discussed as being more or less synonymous with permanent forest types). As discussed in detail below, the epic work of Lucy Braun (1950) is still the definitive basis for the ecological discussion and classification of those North American forests which extend from the Atlantic Coast to slightly beyond the Missouri and Mississippi River drainages. Braun (1950) included all the coniferous forests (forest types, regions, etc.)-- the generic "southeastern pine region"--as part of her one Deciduous Forest Formation. 

The forest range types included in the following section include coniferous, deciduous, and mixed coniferous-deciduous forests. This is confusing but unavoidable given the nature of the vegetation and the standard understanding (the Braun interpretation) of ecological relations and classification of  this forest vegetation. Most of the southeastern pine types presented are management cover types maintained silviculturally as more economically valuable coniferous forests rather than as the climax mixed hardwood-pine forest types. In other words, efforts were made to fit the Society of American Foresters (1980) cover types with the climax types of Braun (1950) and the potential natural vegetation units of Kuchler (1966).      

The major forest communities or forest zones of eastern North America are broad or wide in their spatial patterns unlike the narrow zonation characteristic of the forests of western North America. The “young” mountains of the western part of the continent are taller (in fact, still getting taller) and as a result have more elevation-based zonation of vegetation than do the geologically older and more eroded (lower) eastern mountains such as the Applachians or Ozarks. So too, are the soils of the Atlantic Coast more zonal (ie. major soil units are larger or broader in spational dimension like those of the vast continental interior whereas soils of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope ranges are more of the intrazonal spatial scale. See for illustration the national soil map of dominant soil orders and suborders (Soil Survey Staff, 1998).

 Vankat (1979, p. 137) wrote that relief within the eastern deciduous forest “is quite variable” yet earlier Vankat (1979, p. 41) had also correctly noted that “low hills “ were characteristic of much of this deciduous forest region. Again, contrast this with the extreme physiography of the Rockys or Sierra Nevada-Cascade Ranges.

The classic and still-definitive work on forests of eastern North America (approximately east of the 98^th meridian) is the life’s work of Dr. Lucy Barun (1950). Braun interpreted this entire vegetation as one great forest formation existing as a mosaic of forest regions which in turn were made up of community units that she labeled variously as belts, areas, districts, sections, divisions, etc.    

Braun (1950, ps. 35-37) listed nine forest regions making up the Deciduous Forest Formation of eastern North America:

                1. Mixed Mesophytic Forest Region,

                2. Western Mesophytic Forest Region,

                3. Oak-Hickory Forest Region,

                4. Oak-Chestnut Forest Region,

                5. Oak Pine Forest Region,

                6. Southeastern Evergreen Forest Region,

                7. Beech-Maple Forest Region,

                8. Maple-Basswood Forest Region, and

                9. Eastern Hemlock-Eastern White Pine-Northern Hardwoods Region.

 Braun (1950, ps. 11-12) interpreted these same combinations of species as forest communities at the scale (both spatial, mostly, and, also, temporal) of climax association  from which, as quoted immediately above, Braun derived the names of forest regions. Braun (1950, ps. 11-12) distinguished between the association-abstract and the association-concrete, a distinction discussed in the review of the derivation of vegetation cover type from the concept of plant association. The Braun association is the association of F.E. Clements. Indeed the entire ecological paradigm on which Braun (1950, ps. 10-15) based her monographic treatment of the North American Deciduous Formation is Clementisan except allowance for and inclusion of edaphic and physiographic climaxes of Cowles, Tansley, etc.  Vankat (1979, ps. 137-150) and Delcourt and Delcourt in Barbour and Billings (2000, ps. 365-378) described eastern deciduous forest vegetation under the Braun (1950) associations of the Clementsian model.

It is important to bear in mind that the Braun associations can occur in more than the one forest region bearing the name of the association (eg. the Oak-Pine Association commonly occurs and the Maple-Basswood Association infrequently occurs in parts of the Oak-Hickory Forest Region).

Several of the species combinations that delineate deciduous forest regions and associations were also used as forest cover types by the Society of American Foresters (Eyre, 1980) as for example White Pine-Hemlock (SAF 22), White Pine-Northern Red Oak-Red Maple (SAF 20), Sugar Maple-Basswood (SAF 26), and Beech-Sugar Maple (SAF 60). The Society of American Foresters emphasized that it’s forest cover types were “based on existing tree cover” (… forest as they are today…”) and that some types may be climax while others are “transitory” (ie. seral stages leading to another climax).

Braun (1950, p. xiii) specified: “Some of the communities for which composition is given are readily referable to ‘forest cover types’ as defined by the Society of American Foresters”. She then added, “However, an attempt to classsify all communities as to ‘cover types’ would be artificial” and often impossible. Undoubtedly this was due to the differences in classification by Braun’s climax basis (with seral communities clearly specified) versus the existing or present-day forest communities basis of the SAF.

 The Society for Range Management (Shiflet, 1994, p. xi) also specified the criterion of “existing vegetation” and that some rangeland cover types are climax and others are seral. The author of this collection of photographs and descriptions repeatedly reminded readers of this situation, but specified that most of the rangeland and forest cover types included herein were climax vegetation. That criterion exist for forest range types of the Eastern Deciduous Forest Formation with most photographs being of either old-growth or second-growth forest with climax species composition as described in the classic literature such as Braun (1950) or Shelford (1963, ps. 17-119).

The nine forest regions of Braun (1950, ps. 35-37) were retained with minor rearrangement as series in the fairly comprehensive system of vegetation (primarily, climax; secondly, disclimax and subclimax) used in A Calassification of North American Biotic Communities by Brown et al. (1998, ps. 37-38). Their organization of the Eastern Deciduous Forest Formation was: Oak-Hickory Series, Oak-Chestnut Series, Beech-Maple Series, Oak-Pine Series, Maple-Basswood Series, and Hemlock-White Pine-Mixed Hardwood Series within Northeastern Deciduous Forest biotic community and Mixed Mesophytic Series and Pine Series within Southeastern Deciduous and Evergreen Forest biotic community. The Brown et al. (1998) series were included below following SAF and/or SRM cover type designations.

Their like, their genre of comprehensive, panaramic, descriptive, first-hand accounts of vegetation on this grand scale, will not likely appear again before icicles hang in Hell. The contemporary research world is hung up on numbers, even generated or simulated (vs. real data) numbers often for numbers-sake alone, and especially numbers of publications. This has gone beyond Lord Kelvin’s admonition to “express it in numbers”,  (indeed Kelvin used actual numbers derived from physical experiments) to the point that quantity is everything and quality (always subsidary to quantity) itself is based on numbers. Not only is there little room for Descriptive Ecology, but there is hardly more for descriptive analysis of experiments and observations because the gold-standard of refereed publications has descended, has been perverted, to the quantitative entity of LPU (Lowest Publishable Unit). A natural length paper based on objectives of the study is split into as many LPUs as possible to extend the author’s bibliography. This procedure does not allow enough results to be included in any one paper to allow a discussion of  findings from a comprehensive perspective. Besides the experimental procedure (complete with lots of numbers and split-nine-ways-to-Sunday replications) is the most important part according to anonymous peer-reviewers.  

In an institutional culture where “Publish or Perish” has become prostituted to a realm of pot-boiler papers written from predictable-outcome, piss-ant projects the next generation of Brauns, Weavers, Shelfords are “dead meat” if they devote (ie. sacrifice) their careers to document for eternity the kind of knowledge their “takes a lifetime “ research produced. Such incredible work is left to not only the fully vested or tenured but the tenured full professor of independent financial means at career’s end (and then there is not enough time left to do the work). A key factor in the creative genius and amazing productivity of Frederic E.Clements was that he was able to spend most of his career working for the rich Carnegie Foundation which freed him from the routine of classroom teaching and daily chores of academia thereby enabling him the luxury of a self-proclaimed “escaped professor” (Brewer, 1988, p. 503).  Alternatively, the most lasting and useful research is the province of the academic martyr to whom pursuit of knowledge or satisfaction of curiosity are of higher utility than organizational rank and its financial renumeration.

 Thus the Ecology student is left with the classical works of those “giants in the earth” who reigned when knowledge was the domain of a more leisurely, honest, genteel, and collegial time and culture.

The scholar of biblical texts cannot read just the several English translations of the Holy Bible. He must also understand the native tongues of Hebrew, Arabic, or Greek in which Holy Writ was written. So too with the “scripture” of Ecology. And the language of vegetation, at least North American vegetation, is Clementsian. The serious student of vegetation must be knowledgable and conversant in this language given that so much of the all-encompassing vegetation literature was written predominately from the view of Clementsian Ecology (and vocabulary). These original, monographic works remain the basis, however distant, of current investigations or even classifications of vegetation. The basic ecological concepts in such natural resource fields as Range Management and Forestry remain Clementsian at root (eg. the Clementsian association is the basis of the forest and range cover types as used in North America).

Any who would refuse to familarize themselves with Clementsian Ecology because there are exceptions to and alternative models for some of its general, long temporal-large spatial scales traverse the terrain of ecological literature half blind. In their zeal to reform the basic vegetation paradigm to include, justifiably, the exceptions they end up “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.

2. Basswood or American linden Forest- This is a “pure” basswood (Tilia americana) form of the Sugar Maple-Basswood Forest that was recognized as forest region 8 by Braun (1950, P. 327-336) or Maple-Basswood Association or Maple-Basswood Forest Type (Braun, 1950, see index therein). Braun (1950, p. 328) remarked that some authorities regarded the Maple-Basswood Region as a western continuation (faciation in her Clementsian usage) of the Beech-Maple Association, but she rejected this based on its geologic age of origin. It is a pure basswood variant of SAF 26 (Sugar Maple-Basswood). Eyre (1980, p. 31-32) concluded that the basswood cover was the most variable component such that basswood was the key species of this forest cover type. Wenger (1984, p. 3) rated sugar maple as Very Tolerant and basswood as Tolerant, however, basswood grows faster than sugar maple and regenerates asexually through stump sprouts which gives it an advantage over sugar maple (Eyre, 1980, p. 32).

This is an interior view of the basswood dunes forest that develop inside the dune complex along the shores of Lake Michigan. The remarkably diverse understory is not clear in this slide taken in the winter phase, but the arboreal-dwelling shrub or liana layer is conspicuous. It consist of bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) wild grape (Vitis cordifolia), and poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron= R. radicans= Toxicodendron radicans). This forest community was described by Cowles (1899, ps. 361-367) in the first recorded study of plant succession in the United States. Sugar maple and American beech are scarse associates in this stand. Virginia chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) and red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) dominate the tall shrub layer. Eastern witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) and hop tree (Ptelea trifolianta) are other common shrubs. Cowles (1899, p. 362) regarded starry false solomon’s seal (Smilacina stellata) as the only characteristic herb. Canada wildrye is the dominant grass but is found only in small openings. Hibernal aspect.

 Indiana Dunes State Park, Porter County, Indiana. Hibernal aspect. FRES No. 18 (Maple-Beech-Birch Forest Ecosystem), K-90 (Maple-Basswood). SAF 26 (Sugar Maple-Basswood). Maple-Basswood Series of Brown et al. (1998).

3. This is an interior view of the basswood dunes forest that develop inside the dune complex along the shores of Lake Michigan. The remarkably diverse understory is not clear in this slide taken in the winter phase, but the arboreal-dwelling shrub or liana layer is conspicuous. It consist of bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) wild grape (Vitis cordifolia), and poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron= R. radicans= Toxicodendron radicans). This forest community was described by Cowles (1899, ps. 361-367) in the first recorded study of plant succession in the United States. Sugar maple and American beech are scarse associates in this stand. Virginia chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) and red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) dominate the tall shrub layer. Eastern witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) and hop tree (Ptelea trifolianta) are other common shrubs. Cowles (1899, p. 362) regarded starry false solomon’s seal (Smilacina stellata) as the only characteristic herb. Canada wildrye is the dominant grass but is found only in small openings. Hibernal aspect.

 Indiana Dunes State Park, Porter County, Indiana. Hibernal aspect. FRES No. 18 (Maple-Beech-Birch Forest Ecosystem), K-90 (Maple-Basswood). SAF 26 (Sugar Maple-Basswood). Maple-Basswood Series of Brown et al. (1998).

6. Basswood growth form and asexual reproduction- This basswood specimen is on a north slope as an associate with a southern mixed hardwood forest including sugar maple, black walnut, and American sycamore. It is a textbook example of vegetative reproduction which characterizes this species (Harlow et al., 1979, p. 421). Burns and Honkala, 1990, p. 787) explained that this stump or basal trunk sprouting “allows basswood to maintain itself in a stand with the more shade-tolerant maple despite the much larger numbers of sugar maple in the subcanopy”.  In the Sugar Maple-Basswood Cover Type (SAF 26) maple dominates both canopy and understory (Burns and Honkala, 1990, p. 786).

The understory in this vernal aspect of mesic woods includes bloodroot, trout lily or yellow dog-tooth violet, broadleaf waterleaf, rue anemone, false rue anemone, and mayapple. The bloodroot is conspicuous immediately in front of the trunk. Bluffs above Lost Creek, Ottawa County, Oklahoma. April.

8. American Beech-Sugar Maple Forest- This is interpreted as the climax hardwood forest of the Till Plains, southern portions of the Great Lake Section eastward to Ontario and south to the Western Mesophytic Forest (Braun, 1950, p. 305). The vegetation of this and the next photograph is representative of the Beech-Maple Forest Region and the Beech-Maple Association of Braun (1950, p. 36-37, 305-326, 532-533). It is in the Lake Michigan Dunes locality and, with eastern hemlock as the third dominant tree, was viewed as the climax of the lake dune complex by Cowels (1899, p. 365-367, 384-385). Cowles saw the area occupied by the developmental sequence of vegetation (what Clements called a dune xerosere) becoming progressively more mesophytic until its termination as the Beech-Maple-Hemlock Forest.

To Cowles the basswood-dominated forest that preceded the terminal forest was less mesic than the beech-maple-hemlock forest type. It was noted above that this classic paper by Henry Chandler Cowles was the first published study of plant sucession in North America and that it was the springboard for F.E. Clements grand theory of “dynamic plant ecology”. In context of the Clementsian paradigm the basswood-dominated basswood-maple forest was subclimax to the beech-maple-eastern hemlock forest. However, Cowles did not consider specific habitats or forest sites within the Lake Michigan dune complex but viewed sand dunes as all having the same potential end point.  At the Lake Michigan dunes and adjacent habitats that remain preserved the beech-sugar maple forest is restricted to alluvial terraces and river bottoms. At this location the dune sere(s) did not appear to progress beyond the basswood forest in which sugar maple and beech were relatively rare. Cowles (1899, p. 365) stated clearly that beech-sugar maple forest were “not frequent on old dunes at the south end of the lake” or well-developed in the dunes region compared to northeastward in Michigan.   

 It would seem that that basswood-dominated upland hardwood forest seen above (in the dune depressions and slopes) is climax for the xerosere of dunes, and that viewing the beech-sugar maple forests of alluvial sites as climax ignored the fact that two different, distinct habitats (= seres) were represtented. Basswood communities would be subclimax on bottomlands but climax on the upland forest site(s).

The example of the American Beech-Sugar Maple Association seen in this winter aspect still has some scattered representatives of the dominant species of earlier seral stages including basswood as an associate, white ash (Fraxinus americana), black oak,  eastern cottonwood, and even white walnut or butternut (Juglans cinerea). Smaller trees or shrubs include sassafras (Sassafras officinale) in openings and edges and eastern hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) even in deep shade plus the understory species seen in the basswood-dominated communities. The white snag is an American beech as are  the trees with pale bark. The large, straight, dark-colored trunks in the center are sugar maple. The smaller trees that retained their leaves are young sugar maples indicating reproduction in shade as is the case for beech (the slender trees in the foreground with light-colored bark).

This is a bottomland forest in the floodplain of the Little Calumet River. Indiana Dunes State Park, Porter County, Indiana. Winter aspect. FRES No. 18 (Maple-Beech-Birch Forest Ecosystem), K-93 (Beech-Maple Forest), SAF 60 (Beech-Sugar Maple). Beech-Maple Series of Brown et al. (1998).

9. American Beech-Sugar Maple Bottomland Forest- This is a representative of the climax Beech-Maple Forest Association and the Beech-Maple Forest Region of Braun (1950, ps. 36, 305-326, 532-533). The understory layers are similar to those of the previous slide except for more mesic species of herbs such as large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), jack-in-the-pulpit or Indian turnip (Arisaema triphyllum), and beechdrops or cancer-root (Epiphegus virginiana) (Cowles, 1899, p. 365). Basswood is the major associate.  

 Climax bottomland (floodplain) Beech-Sugar Maple Forest on banks of Little Calumet River. Indiana Dunes state Park, Porter County, Indiana. Hibernal aspect. FRES No. 18 (Maple-Beech-Birch Forest Ecosystem), K-93 (Beech-Maple Forest), SAF 60 (Beech-Sugar Maple). Beech-Maple Series of Brown et al. (1998).

In the Clementsian monoclimax theory there is a regional-scale climax determined by climate of that region or zone. As such this is climatic climax or, as synonyms, regional climax or just plain climax where the term climax is derived from climate. Given that climax and formation were used by Clements as synonyms, climatic climax= regional climax= formation and, later in Bioecology (Clements and Shelford, 1939), biome. This was monoclimax theory (ie. all above synonyms were synonymous with monoclimax). This was the conceptual framework on which Braun (1950) hung her Clementsian associations of the Deciduous Forest Formation.

According to monoclimax perspective the climatic or regional climax is that which would theoretically exist if the terrain of a region was geologically eroded down to a level upland (ie. hills or mountains worn down and stream drainages filled in such that a peneplane prevailed) (Spurr and Barnes, 1980, p. 413). This would result in a relatively uniform mesic upland according to the prevailing geologic theories upon which Clements based his view of monoclimax. From the monoclimax perspective it seemed most logical to view the regional climax for the locations seen in these photographs as the basswood-dominated upland forest with the beech-sugar maple bottomland forest as post-climax to the basswood forest.

  In the shorter time scale of the polyclimax theory, the alternative conceptual view that was proposed by Clements’ close friend Arthur Tansley, there are several potential climaxes within the spatial scale of the region in the time period before geologic leveling to an average upland plain. Within a region there are smaller habitats which because of local or area variations in soil, slope, aspect, fire or flooding regime (largely functions of climate), etc. there are physiographic, edaphic, pyric, zootic climaxes that override the influence of regional climate. Polyclimax theory allows interpretation of the basswood forest as climatic climax (beacause it is the mesic upland forest) and beech-maple forest as topographic or edaphic climax.

The third major conceptual view of climax is the climax pattern theory advanced by Robert H. Whittaker (1953). This composite perspective incoroporated parts of both  mono- and polyclimax theories besides adding population interpretations that seemed modified from the individualistic theory of plant communities advanced by Henry Allen Gleason (1926). Climax pattern theory would also allow both of these forest communities to be interpreted as climax forest types. With all three climax theories, the basswood and beech-sugar maple forest are potential natural vegetation, by whatever designation they bear.      

 Also by any ecological status these forest are quite vulnerable to damage by grazing and browsing and forest regeneration can be retarded or prevented by improper grazing management. Species of timber-producing trees are primarily of the phanerophyte life (= growth) form developed by Raunkiaer (1934). Phanerophytes (from Greek phaneros, meaning “visible”) are those plants having surviving buds or shoot apices borne on shoots projecting into the air (well above ground level). They include evergreen species both with and without bud coverings and deciduous woody species with bud coverings. The physical location and “presentation” of the apical tissue well within “easy reach” of browsing animals, fires, wind, etc. makes phanerophytes the most apt to be damaged by these agents of defoliation. Like the army gaining tactical advantage of the hill or ridge phanerophytes have the competitive advantage of occupying the “high ground” and fixing light while denying it to the understory species or slower-growing, shade-intolerant woody plants. This “high ground” advantage carries the cost of putting phanerophytes more “in harm’s way”, and also at a competitive disadvantage with those species having any of the other growth forms as for example  cryptophytes (krypos is Greek for “hidden”) like many of the perennial grasses which have rhizomes and root crowns at or below the soil surface. Therophytes (theros is Greek for “summer”) are annuals or ephemerals which are the most tolerant of all life forms to defoliation because they survive as relatively small, unpalatable, and neigh-on-to-indestructable seeds. This is why overburning and overgrazing ultimately result in a preponderance of annual grasses and herbs in abused plant communities and why grasslands and savannas are maintained under proper burning management.

Phanerophytes of both woody angiosperm and gymnosperm species have meristematic tissue, especially apical meristems, that are readily accessible to browsing animals until most of these tissues grow beyond teeth, tongue, lips, hooves, etc. Even at matuirity the bark and cambium of woody plants remain exposed to herbivores like beavers, porcupines, and elk. Conifers, however, generally are much less palatable— for whatever interesting plant defense mechanisms are involved —than angiosperm trees and shrubs. Coniferous forests also typically are more open with understories which produce grass and browsable shrubs that are relatively more palatable than dominant conifer species. Finally, the naked seeds of conifers are less nutritions and palatable than the fruits of angiosperms. The nut pines are an exception, but a mental comparison of acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts or even maple samaras to the seeds of ponderosa pine or redwood proves the general condition.

 Nutritional attractiveness of fruits is an evolutionary adaptation for propagule dissemination by animal dispersal (epizoochory), but what happens when there is “too much of a good thing” as by introduction of too many efficient epizoochores (eg. too many acorn-eating, rooting hogs in the woods)? Any observant woodsman knows how readily livestock, especially hogs, fatten on forest mast. This was discussed in historical perspective by Towne and Wentworth (1950, ps. 104-112) who indicated specifically the role of free-ranging hogs in destruction of native bamboo canebrakes.There is probably no mast more palatable to swine than beechnuts. Steyermark (1963, p. 528) discussed use of beech in Missouri and reported that beechnuts “are a favorite food of hogs in those areas where open range is permitted”.  Burns and Honkala, 1990, p. 330) reported that all kinds of animals, including black bear and fox, ate beechnuts and that beech was “the only nut producer in the northern hardwood type”. Obviously sexual reproduction of the dominant species in the American Beech-Sugar Maple Association can be impacted adversely by improper numbers and kind of animals.

This includes wildlife the same as livestock. In commenting on beech-dominated northern hardwood forest as habitat for wild turkey Wunz and Pack in Dickson (1992, ps. 235-236) stated that shrubs which are desirable for turkey have been reduced and even eliminated due to overbrowsing by white-tailed deer. They noted further that most understory species in this forest type are palatable and prone to damage by deer. Burns and Honkala (1990, p. 330) reported that American beech was seldom utilized heavily by white-tailed deer and that when other tree species were present beech was “usually nipped only sparingly”. Beech often reproduces asexually by root suckering, especially on south slopes (Burns and Honkala, 1990, p. 327-328), so it can persist with properly managed herbivores. Again, this includes management of wildlife species. Bag limits to control (reduce and keep consistent with grazing capacity) deer numbers are as critical as is stocking rate with cattle or range hogs.  

 One of the best and longest-term studies on the role of native and domestic herbivores on mixed deciduous forest ecosystems is that reported by Tubbs (1968) and Putman (1986).

Multiple use management of northern hardwood forests to include browse and forage for range animals is a valid and desirable goal if— as is always the case —management is well-planned and -conducted. Even hogs (eg. feral “Russian wild boar” as a game animal) can be safely included in forest management if, above all else, proper animal numbers are maintained so as not to interfere with forest regeneration. Sometimes that is a “big if”. Conscientious stock-growers realize and manage according to the truth given by Spurr and Barnes (1980, p. 360):

       “Around the world, grazing by livestock has probably been more important than any

       other factor in reducing the productive capacity of uncultivated land”. 

Livestock consumption of woody forest plants, even seemingly relatively unpalatable species such as Virginia creeper or posion ivy, and even by cattle is self-evident when these plant species recover following removal of livestock (again, even beef cattle which do not prefer shrubs). In recent years leaders in the livestock industries have become extremely “pro-active” in identifying and highlighting examples of faithful stewardship. The Environmental Stewardship Program of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is a sterling example and makes one proud to be counted among the membership. This must be an unending effort by all involved.

12. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum)- Leaves and fruit (paired winged schizocarps) of the co-dominant of the beech-maple forest cover type. This example was from a north slope bluff above a stream in the oak-hickory forest of the Ozark Plateau. Early pioneers in southwest Missouri, northeastern Oklahoma, and northwest Arkansas tapped sugar maples for syrup in the same way as in New England. Ottawa County, Oklahoma. August.