Spring Highlights

• New spring growth: new leaves on trees, fiddleheads of Christmas fern
• Whorled leaves and, if you're lucky, yellowish green blooms of Indian cucumber
• Dangling catkins of oak and sweet birch trees

Summer Highlights

• Full green of summer leaves
• Cool shade on these north-facing slopes
• Gracefully held branches and symmetrical leaves of American beech trees
• Scarlet berries of ground-hugging partridgeberry
• Tall or fallen bleached carcasses of once-grand eastern hemlock

Autumn Highlights

• White blooms of white wood-aster
• Dark berries of Indian cucumber, set off nicely against bright red leaf colors below
• Birds eating Indian cucumber berries and partridgeberries
• Don’t miss: the yellow, fringe-like flowers of American witch-hazel in late autumn and early winter

Winter Highlights

• Evergreen eastern hemlock and mountain laurel
• Evergreen Christmas ferns and partridgeberry
• Acorns—look for one-inch long acorns of chestnut oak, and smaller acorns of northern red oak
• Tan, papery leaves of American beech hanging on until spring
• Interesting shapes and textures of twigs, bark, and buds: smooth gray American beech trunks; horizontal markings on sweet birch bark; dark and deeply furrowed bark of chestnut oak