West Rock Park, CT

Today I spent a few hours looking at winter trees in nearby West Rock Park. The weather was quite strange today, quickly turning from sun to rain to snow and then back again.

My original reason for going out was to take a look at the local birch species. Immediately after entering the park I spotted a gray birch. The species has whitish bark like the paper birch but it does not peel as readily. This species is able to grow quickly in poor soils, including abandoned farmland. Apparently, from the picture, the inner bark is brown.

Gray Birch (Betula populifolia)
Family: Betulaceae (Birches)


Gray birches often have multiple, relatively thin stems.



One of the mainstays of the northeast forest is the white pine. This evergreen species can be easily identified by its long, thin needles which are in bundles of five.

Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)
Family: Pinaceae (Pines)


If you look in any field guide you will see that the bark of the white pine is rough and furrowed. But on my trek I looked over many young trees, and noticed that most have predominately smooth bark at this stage.

Young White Pine Bark


A little older - starting to get rough patches


A Majestic Stand Of Eastern White Pines


My best guess is that the next tree is the Norway Spruce (Picea abies) but I am not sure. The remnants of the cones look too small to be this species.

Bark of young tree


Branch


Cones ?


Another winter tree that I couldn't identify. I think it is a larch because it has no needles, but there were tons of short needles lying below the tree. This would make sense since larches are deciduous. Also there are lots of bumps (spurs) running along the branches which may give rise to the needles. I feel like this might be the introduced European larch (Larix decidua) because the cone is facing upright and is too big to be a tamarack (Larix laricina)

Fallen European Larch ?


Larch Cone ?


I just bought a mushroom book the other day so I don't know too much. But this is evidently a Polypore (I don't think this is a legitimate taxonomic grouping), which grow bracket-like on trees. Apparently, when a tree falls, these guys always reorient themselves so that they are on a plane parallel to the ground. this is because the spores are usually on the underside and therefore they can easily drop to the ground. This looks like turkey tail fungus (Trametes versicolor), but I am not really sure.

Turkey Tail?