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How to Recognize It
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Only one small stand of Acidic Oak - Hickory Forest has been mapped in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. It’s in the Maryland Heights area, on a steep west- and southwest-facing slope overlooking the Potomac River and a small tributary flowing into it. Expect to see a variety of oaks and hickories (particularly chestnut oak and pignut hickory), and possibly flowering dogwood, hillside blueberry, and poverty oatgrass.
Can you find this combination of key features?
Identifying This Natural Community
- A variety of oaks and hickories, particularly chestnut oak, white oak, and pignut hickory
- Absence of tuliptree and sugar maple
- Some flowering dogwood trees, but few or no eastern redbud trees
- Hillside blueberry
- A sparse covering of grasses including poverty oatgrass, and other small plants
- Location: on the lower part of a west- to southwest-facing slope
If so, welcome to the Acidic Oak - Hickory Forest at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
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