Every acre contains the same measure of land regardless of whether it is steep, bowl-shaped, or the Great Plains. This is due to long-standing conventions of land surveying and accepted…

Knots in trees occur where a branch has been surrounded by continued growth of the bole. When the bole is sawn into lumber, or peeled to make veneer, the branch sections included in the lumber…

Tree roots are inscrutable. While their importance to the aboveground parts of trees and forests is well appreciated by forest scientists, tree roots have always been notoriously difficult to…

Sapwood is the living, outermost portion of a woody stem or branch, while heartwood is the dead, inner wood, which often comprises the majority of a stem’s cross-section. You can usually…

Trees are made to sway in the breeze. They need to, really. Trees and wind have been doing this dance for a long time, and the trees seem to have learned their steps. Just watch them: they…

We don’t want to shock the tourists, but the spring woods do bring some color beyond green. While spring displays of herbaceous plants flowering on the forest floor are a treat, there is…

Does Sugaring with a Vacuum Pump Hurt the Trees? Sap flows out of tap holes in sugar maples when the spring days are warm and the nights are freezing, because those conditions make the…

A climax forest is a good place to start an argument with an ecologist. To some, it is a nice name for forests that have escaped disturbance by outside forces like storms or diseases or…

DBH is shorthand for the diameter of a tree’s trunk measured at breast height. Setting aside the interesting and potentially delicate new questions the latter two words raise, let’s first…

Everybody knows that tree species vary in their ability to tolerate shade. It’s easy to find shady places in the woods where shade-tolerant species such as American beech and eastern hemlock…