Oak / Hickory Forest

At one time, Pennsylvania was all forested.  The name Pennsylvania actually comes from the Latin “silva” meaning trees or forest.  “Penn” was added as a prefix after William Penn.  These mature forests were very open, almost park like.  An early settler once said, “I could have driven a cart from one end of its extremities to the other in almost any direction without meeting an obstruction.”  However, the landscape drastically changed after European settlement.  When Europeans settled in Southeastern PA, because of the fertile soils and access to the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, they harvested almost all of the native forests.  98% of PA was forested, but European settlers cut and converted large tracts of forests to agriculture.  Today, 58% of PA is now wooded; 0.03% is virgin forest; the national government controls 3% of PA’s woodland; the state, 20%; counties and other municipalities, 2%; and private persons and businesses, 75% (according to U.S. Forest Service).  PA has 2.3% of the woodland in the U.S.  Even prior to European settlement, Native Americans set fires to clear underbrush.  Most of the forests today are a product of 100-300 years of succession – the time since settlers first logged the forests.  So, even though they may not appear to be, the forests of PA are changing, as are almost all landscapes.  They have a history and a future.  What you observe today is just one moment in the forest’s life.

Researchers sort the complicated diversity of nature into categories called forest type. Each forest type is unique.  The Oak/Hickory forest is the woodland community here at Landis Woods. The Oak /Hickory forests are the most common woodland communities in Central Pennsylvania, making up about 46% of forested land.  These forests are found on rocky, well drained, upland sites that have acidic soils. The tree composition in our oak/hickory forests can display subtle to pronounced differences due to a variety of site factors.  On the drier sites and upper slopes the dominant species may be chestnut, black, and scarlet oak along with pignut and mockernut hickory.  On the lower slopes with deeper soils such species as red and white oak and possibly shagbark and bitternut hickory might join the mixture.  Other trees that are part of these forests include red maple, black birch, black gum, sassafras, beech, white pine, white ash, and tulip poplar.  The understory of the oak/hickory forest typically has dense woody growth composed of species such as red maple, beech, oaks, hickory, black gum, black birch, sassafras, white ash, serviceberry, flowering dogwood, mountain laurel, witch hazel, wild azalea, huckleberry, and blueberry.

The oak/hickory forest developed as the result of land use practices in the early 1900’s resulting in widespread timbering of forests and large wildfires. Another factor that promoted this type of community was the onset of chestnut blight, a disease that wiped out most of the American Chestnut trees. The American Chestnut was the most dominant tree found in upland forests at the time. An oak-hickory forest is considered to be a sub climax forest community meaning that this species mixture will change if “forest succession” is allowed to progress.

This is one of 11 (eleven) informational signs at Landis Woods Park.