MaRose Dendrology Walk

Dendrology Tour of 139 Clark Road.

Tour Overview:
This tour will bring you on a short, easy walk around the more accessible parts of this property. This property is located at 139 Clark Road in Unity, Maine and public access is not frowned on as long as you let someone know you're coming ahead of time. This location is in central Maine, where the northern Spruce-Fir forest and the more southerly deciduous forests meet in what is known as the transitional zone. Both forest types can be seen on the property deeper into the woods.

However, this tour takes you from the top of the driveway where it meets Clark Road down through the front yard, around the house to the backyard, and then back up front to the driveway again.

For a bit more information on the forest surrounding the house:

The physiography is characterized by formations caused by glacial advance and retreat. This makes the landscape more jagged, with hills and valleys abundant. The forest around my house is a mixed forest in the transitional zone between the spruce-fir forests of northern Maine and the more southerly deciduous forests. It is characterized by two distinct stands, one a mix of northern white cedar, spruce, fir, and occasional deciduous trees, and the other a deciduous stand with the occasional eastern white pine.

The coniferous stand is a wet area, possibly a coniferous seepage forest. There is a lot of runoff to the area and an underground aquifer that keeps the ground wet year-round. Species in stand 1 consist mainly of white spruce, red spruce, balsam fir, and northern white cedar, with the occasional yellow birch, and with larch (Larix laricina) and some white ash and eastern white pine scattered near the edge before it turns to a small hedge of speckled alders and then into the backyard. This stand has an understory of blackberries, seedling balsam fir, white ash, and other trees, some scattered maple-leaf viburnum, and a mix of non-woody species.

The second stand is on the ridge above the house sloping downwards towards the coniferous stand, and this is mainly a mix of sugar maple, red maple, northern red oak, quaking aspen, and american beech with some other species mixed in. Other species include edge species such as Bebb's willow, black locust, and gray birch, as well as some paper birch and wild apples mixed in deeper into the forest. The understory of this stand is mainly seedlings of the aforementioned trees as well as some smaller shrubs, blackberries, invasive morrow's honeysuckle, and non-woody species.

If you decide to venture into the forest keep this in mind and see if you can note the area where one stand transitions to the other!

What to Bring:

Whatever you want! This is a simple walk around the accessible areas of the property. However, if you take some of the suggestions within the tour and venture into the woods long pants for tick protection and protection from thorny plants may be useful. Boots are also useful if you want a closer look at the Larix laricina you'll see from Point of Interest 27. That area in the forest can be a bit wet, and you'll definitely encounter thorns on the way in.

I always recommend bringing some water, although water is easily accessible at this location.

Also, bring a field guide to identify species not explicitly shown in the tour! I recommend The Forest Trees of Maine.

You're welcome to bring snacks, too, although if you're here during the summer or fall there will be wild fruits to snack on including blackberries and raspberries, wild strawberries (look down!), and apples.