Vegetation Structure

While walking through Rines Preserve, we can identify different layers of a forest. These layers include forest floor (root and moss layers), herb, shrub, understory, and canopy layers. The canopy layers at Rines were mostly made up of different birch, maple, and oak species. The understory was made up of some younger trees and smaller species, including young birch, beech trees, and aspen trees. Shrubs included winterberry holly and lowbush blueberry. Herbs were primarily different fern species such as the lady fern, bracken fern, and sensitive fern.