Ninety-five percent of the Blue Ridge is wooded, and much of this forest is made up of scarlet, red, and chestnut oaks. On the ridges and dry slopes there may also be hickory, black locust, black birch, and scattered maple, black gum, ash, and pine. In moister coves there is a greater variety of species including white oak, maple, birch, yellow-poplar, sycamore, and basswood. In cooler coves and on north slopes, hemlocks are dominant. At higher elevations, red spruce and balsam fir stand as relics of the northern forest type that covered the Blue Ridge during the more arctic conditions of the Pleistocene Age.

The limberlost at the head of Whiteoak Canyon contains hemlocks that are over 400 years old and 3 feet in diameter. The dead trunks of some giant American chestnuts are still standing, but these trees are no longer a part of the Blue Ridge forest—they were killed out by the chestnut blight. The forests of 300 years ago were cut for wood products and to clear land, and their regrowth was prevented by fire and grazing.

Today’s forest contains mostly small trees. The older oaks along the exposed ridge lines have been twisted and broken by ice and wind. In many places open fields are becoming overgrown with scrub pine, black locust, sassafras, and other early invaders. These lead the way for the return of the climax oak forest that will again someday clothe the mountains.

The changing seasons make the variety of Shenandoah’s woody plants conspicuous. The flowers of redbud, dogwood, wild cherry, black locust, azalea, and mountain laurel make spring a veritable fairyland. The autumn color parade begins with black gum and red maple, varied and added to by hickories, dogwood, ash, and sassafras, until the climax of oaks makes the slopes blaze with red and orange, then subside to russet and brown. The gray of winter branches is relieved only by the dark green of pine, spruce, fir, and hemlock.