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| White ash trees dominate this first section of the Nature Trail. We think that these ash trees were planted as landscaping when the campus was first constructed some forty years ago. You can see a representative white ash directly across the trail from the Outdoor Classroom. (Read about White Ash Trees)
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In the late spring and throughout the summer this observation point is richly surrounded by vegetation. Trees are wrapped with vines of Virginia creeper, wild grape and poison ivy. Spaces in between the trees and bushes are filled with wild raspberry canes, free standing poison ivy, Japanese barberry and wild rose. Read more about Poison Ivy |
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The Pennsylvania State University ©2002 This page was last updated on July 8, 2009
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Just
to the right of the white ash is a sassafras tree. Sassafras is an abundant
"lower canopy" tree species throughout the Nature Trail and is easily identified by
the 'thumb-lobed' leaves.
Down the trail past the white ash are two American elm trees. A full-grown elm is one of the most beautiful and graceful looking hardwood trees in the eastern forest. Their vase-like crown graced many parks and street-sides throughout America until the devastating spread of Dutch Elm disease wiped most of them out. We will see more of these elms along the trail, but these specimens illustrate (especially in the late spring) several of the insect problems associated with the elm. Damaged bark from the elm bark beetle and carved out leaves from the elm leafminer greatly limit the robustness of these specimens. In the picture to the left you can actually see the leafminer larvae within the leaf tissue.
