Just down the hall from Sustainable Woodstock’s office is that of the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to sustain and enhance the the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. Since 1963, in their vast 7,800-acre tract of northern hardwood forest in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest, Hubbard Brook has engaged in far-reaching, systematic studies of forest ecosystems. This research includes perhaps the most comprehensive long-term studies of plant species and their roles in the ecological dynamics of the forest understory.

From wildflowers, mosses and ferns to shrubs and young trees, the forest understory is often described as anything growing beneath the forest canopy up to 25 feet tall. But the forest understory is not just a community of plants that can tolerate heavy shade, it is the nursery for the trees that tower overhead. Without the understory, there would be no forest. 

The forest understory also serves as critical habitat for many species, ranging from ladyslippers, witch hazel and skunk cabbage, to wood turtles, white-tailed deer and porcupines. Birds that spend much of their time feeding and nesting in the understory include the American Woodcock, Ruffed Grouse, Wild Turkey, Ovenbird, Scarlet Tanager and many of our woodland thrushes, including the Veery, Wood 

Thrush and Hermit Thrush (Vermont’s State Bird).  

Herbaceous plants and shrubs in the understory must tolerate heavy shade and intense competition for water and nutrients from the roots of trees in the overstory. Low-growing wildflowers need to also survive getting covered by leaf litter every autumn. When springtime arrives, they push up through the mat of leaves before the trees leaf out and while sunlight still bathes the forest floor. This survival strategy is responsible for the extravaganza of spring wildlflowers that carpets the northern hardwood forest, such as spring beauty, red trillium, bloodroot and trout lily. Common understory shrubs and trees range from low-bush blueberry and hobble bush, to witch hazel and striped maple. And, of course, all of our forest trees begin their lives as saplings growing in the understory nursery.

Many understory plants produce large seeds that can survive for years before the proper conditions arrive for germination. Others overwinter as perennial underground stems, bulbs, corms and rhizomes. Wild sarsaparilla, for example, spreads by rhizomes that form expansive patches which blanket the forest floor. Although this plant dies back to the soil surface every autumn, the rhizome can live for many years. As part of a botanical research project, I studied the rhizomes of wild sarsaparilla to count the annual rings of growth recorded there. Many of the rhizomes were more than 35 years old, a fact that is belied by the short plants that they produce each springtime which appear to the untrained eye like they have just sprouted from a seed.

Researchers with the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study have identified more than 400 species of plants growing in the northern forest, including 224 species of flowering plants, 150 mosses and liverworts, 26 kinds of ferns and their related plants and 6 species of conifer. Woody plants comprised 40 varieties of shrubs and 27 tree species, but more than 80% of the total number of forest species were herbaceous plants growing in the understory. These understory plants feed the soil and play a critical role in nutrient cycling. They shade the soil and so help it to retain moisture. Understory plant communities also provide life-sustaining food, shelter and nesting sites for wildlife.

Despite its resilience, the forest understory is a delicate ecosystem. The complex interconnections between species above ground and in the soil are easily disrupted or destroyed when clearing “brush” and when harvesting trees. Large clearcuttings have been found to eliminate many herbaceous species, decrease biodiversity and reduce regeneration of the forest. Dragging a log across the forest floor has been shown to sever the delicate threads (hyphae) of the symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that are at the heart of a vast web of life that thrives in forest soils and makes possible life in the forest ecosystem.

As a naturalist, ecologist and observer of nature, in recent years I have noticed a significant increase of the destruction of forest understories. One recent trend: in the interest of opening up a view and creating a park-like setting in their woodlands, many private landowners are now mowing down and clearing the forest understory on a large scale around their homes. Not only does this destroy intricate plant communities that have taken decades to develop and evolve, it removes the nursery where the next generation of replacement trees for that forest would be nurtured. And as the plants go, so too do the food, shelter, nesting sites and cover for wildlife—including birds, mammals and insects. Clearing the forest understory creates an ecological desert where once there was a rich, diverse and thriving understory ecosystem. To destroy or degrade the forest understory is no less than killing the goose that laid the golden seedlings. 

What can be done? Selective tree harvests that are part of a long-term forest management plan to preserve the health and diversity of the forest overstory, and that are conducted during winter when the ground is frozen, can minimize the impact on the forest understory. 

And when it comes to managing the forest on your property, resist any temptation to clear the understory. Instead, focus on removing invasive species, encouraging native flora and enjoying the sights, sounds and presence of the rich variety of wildlife that frequent this diverse and dynamic environment.

Starflower and pink lady slipper are a small sample of the rich diversity of wildflowers that inhabit the forest understory. A clutch of eggs in an Ovenbird nest on the forest floor. (Photos by Michael J. Caduto)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Contact your County Forester in order to connect with forest professionals who can provide advice and assitance on drafting and implementing an ecologically-balanced forest habitat management plan.
• Contact the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation to inquire about cost-share and incentive programs for helping landowners accomplish conservation work on their land: fpr.vermont.gov

The post Saving the Understory Sustainer of Our Forests appeared first on Sustainable Woodstock.

Over 4,000 people have attended monthly films in the Upper Valley Climate Change and Sustainability Film Series, which is offered by Sustainable Woodstock in partnership with Pentangle Arts. Screening on May 24-25, 2022: Motherload—a crowdsourced documentary in which the cargo bicycle becomes a vehicle for exploring motherhood in this digital age of climate change. (Motherload is also cohosted with the Upper Valley Sierra Club.)

In this column we normally share information about important environmental, social and economic issues affecting Woodstock, neighboring communities, the Upper Valley region and beyond, including suggestions for what we can all do to help. Yet one of the most common questions we hear is: “What does Sustainable Woodstock do?” So here are some highlights and recent news. 

As of May 1st 2022, Sustainable Woodstock (SW) has our first full-time employee! Jenevra Wetmore has been our Program Coordinator for nearly two years, and recently accepted the position of full-time Program Director. This new role will allow the organization to focus more time and energy on the initiatives we are committed to, including an expansion of our income-sensitive outreach on weatherization and other energy-efficiency projects, as well as other regular programs such as our Upper Valley Green Drinks series and Climate Change and Sustainability Film Series (with Pentangle Arts). 

Energy policy action and advocacy to mitigate climate change: For several years, Sustainable Woodstock has been working toward progress with energy policy and actions in Woodstock, These initiatives include planning and advocacy for hiring a Regional Energy Coordinator (passed at Town Meeting in 2020), as well as adopting the Climate Emergency Action & Resolution (in partnership with Change the World Kids), which was passed by the Select Board and Village Trustees in December 2019. In the ensuing 2 years, we have worked closely with the Intermunicipal Regional Energy Coordinator (IREC) at Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission (Geoff Martin), as well as town officials, in order to move several major energy projects along to mitigate carbon emissions, including the net-zero-ready design of the new EMS building.

A more recent IREC initiative (with SW’s input, support and advocacy) was a major proposal for energy-saving projects that will reduce Woodstock’s carbon emissions by 12.5%. This proposal was passed by voters on 1 March 2022. (Thank you to everyone who supported this effort!) The primary focus of the proposal is installing heat pumps in municipal buildings to substantially offset, and in some cases eliminate, the use of propane for heating. These heat pumps will reduce the town’s propane use by up to 10,000 gallons per year. (This will save Woodstock $20,000/year, even when factoring in the use of electricity by the new heat pumps.) The proposal also includes adding direct digital controls for managing the HVAC systems throughout Woodstock buildings. The controls will allow the buildings to be managed through a centralized, online platform, and will ensure that the buildings’ systems are running optimally. Finally, the project includes LED lighting upgrades wherever needed, and some minor weatherization and weather stripping.

Forest Carbon Management: Sustainable Woodstock’s Forest Carbon Action Group recently completed a 2-year effort to create a 24×36-inch full-color educational forest carbon management poster for landowners. The poster will assist and inform landowners on how to manage their forests so as to mitigate climate change by storing and sequestering more carbon. Posters are currently on display throughout the Upper Valley, Vermont and New England. You can access an online version of the poster on our website.

Weatherization and energy-saving projects for low-income households: 

1. One of Sustainable Woodstock’s biggest initiatives over the next two years is a project called: EQUAL ENERGY OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL: Nurturing Resilient Households for Future Generations Through Income-Sensitive Energy Savings & Efficiencies. As part of this effort, SW is working with the Woodstock Area Relief Fund and other regional community partners to provide small grants for low-income weatherization and energy-efficiency improvement projects. To date, fifty households have signed up to receive this assistance. Sustainable Woodstock is conducting outreach to these households to register them for free weatherization, if income qualifying, and to address their home energy concerns. The following community organizations have also donated and partnered by enrolling low-income households in their own communities: King’s Daughters, Plymouth Memory Tree, Barnard Helping Hands, Faulkner Fund, Aging in Place and Senior Solutions (southeastern Vermont).
2. SW has been working for two years now on a weatherization program conducting outreach to mobile homeowners in partnership with Vital Communities. This year, all mobile home residents in Hartland and Woodstock received an energy survey, along with materials on free weatherization and energy assistance services.
3. This fall, Sustainable Woodstock will be collaborating with WindowDressers (WD), a nonprofit organization, to make custom-built, interior storm window inserts for income-qualifying Woodstock area residents. The inserts are easy to install, removable and reusable. They let light in, keep drafts out and reduce heating costs. We will build 200 inserts at no cost for local residents.

Watershed United Block Grant: Sustainable Woodstock applied for and received a Design and Implementation Block Grant through Watersheds United Vermont (WUV), in conjunction with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. This grant will address an eroding bank on Barnard Brook where it flows alongside SW’s Billings Farm Community Garden. The subsiding riverbank is undermining a corner of the garden, which will need to be moved somewhat to the west once the bank stabilization work gets underway during the off-season. Work will begin this summer to create an initial design and alternatives assessment for the project. 

Community Gardens & Food Security: SW has greatly increased our focus on addressing the critical need for sustenance as the root of sustainability for individuals, families and communities by coordinating such activities in our gardens at Billings Farm and King Farm (VT Land Trust). We have increased staff time to accommodate a 30% rise in community gardeners in recent years, and to grow food for the Woodstock Community Food Shelf and Upper Valley Haven (in partnership with Zack’s Place and Woodstock Terrace). We collaborate with and support the efforts of other organizations addressing critical needs for food and nutrition, including the Woodstock Community Food Shelf, Reading-West Windsor Food Shelf, Hartland Food Shelf and Upper Valley Haven. SW’s GROW YOUR OWN GARDEN project has enabled and empowered some 600 people of all ages to establish new gardens and grow their own nutritious vegetables. 

Our sincere gratitude to all of our dedicated volunteers and generous supporters for making it all possible!

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Traditionally, during the early spring, maple sap was gathered in birchbark buckets. Sap was boiled down in clay pots until it formed syrup. Much of the syrup was made into maple sugar—an energy source that stored well and provided sustenance on long journeys. Maple sugaring remains an important cultural tradition and source of food in today’s Abenaki communities, even as contemporary methods have been adapted.

Sap from winsak, the “sweet birches” of yellow and black (Betula alleghaniensis and B. lenta), is also boiled down to form an elixir with a wintergreen essence. Tea extracted from the boiled twigs and inner bark can be used as an astringent and a wintergreen mouthwash.

When Kikas, the “planter” moon rises, activity shifts to gathering early greens, groundnuts, other edible roots, and tree barks flush with vital nutrients. Food from wild plants offers greater nutrition than many domesticated varieties, including more energy, fiber, trace elements, and essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, vitamin E, calcium, iron, and folate. 

A nutritious native harvest is foraged from woodlands, wetlands, meadows, and fields. The prolific, earthy-tasting roots of groundnut (Apios Americana) lay exposed along eroded vernal riverbanks, revealing strings of inch-wide nodules. These are cleaned, pealed, and boiled or roasted for about 30 minutes to make bite-sized, potato-like tubers.

Familiar spikes of cattail shoots (Typha latifolia and T. angustifolia) and the lance-like leaves of arrowhead or duck-potato (Sagittaria latifolia) sprout  in neighboring marshes. The swellings on arrowhead roots are dug and cut away, then processed and cooked like groundnuts. A tough, fibrous covering surrounds the starchy cattail roots, which are difficult to gather but have a tender, nutritious center.

Wild leeks or ramps (Allium tricoccum) are harvested from dark riparian soil; scallion-like roots bearing intense onion flavor. This plant is so prevalent along the banks of one waterway in north-central Vermont that it is still known by the Abenaki name Winooski, “Onion” River.

The inner barks of many species contain medicines. Dried willow bark contains salicylates, which metabolize into salicylic acid (aspirin). Willow-bark tea is a painkiller and anti-inflammatory used for treating colds, diarrhea, and rheumatism, without irritating the stomach like aspirin. Bark from basswood (Tilia americana) and slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) are used to treat infected wounds, and that of striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum) to create a poultice that reduces swelling. Slippery elm bark tea coats and sooths the throat and stomach and eases gas, heartburn, and diarrhea.

In the forest understory, newly melted snow reveals the tiny teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens)—also known as wintergreen or checkerberry. The roundish, evergreen leaves and red berries from last summer emanate the ambrosia of wintergreen. Tender spring leaves are nibbled raw. When eating the leaves and berries, saliva and digestive juices transform the wintergreen compound into salicylic acid—nature’s chewable aspirin.

As the season progresses, the scent of wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) wafts from underfoot—crimson gems of sweetness and flavor. The berries are eaten raw, put into food for flavoring, and dried for later use.

If someone contacts poison ivy while foraging, he or she simply rubs the stems of jewelweed (Impatiens sp.) or the leaves of sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) onto the skin to quell inflammation. Sap from milkweed sprouts is applied directly for treating warts. 

Historically, the Abenaki viewed edibles as forming a continuum that transitioned from formal vegetable gardens into wilderness. When soil became depleted after 10 to 15 years of gardening, villages were moved to new ground where piles of acorns, butternuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, dried blueberries, and seeds of other important foods were placed around the lodges. Squirrels gathered this largess and buried the fruits and nuts in secret caches. The forgotten stores became seeds of the groves of “wild” fruits and nuts that surrounded many villages. Many other desirable species were encouraged by cultivating those seeds and plants, such as rose, dock, choke cherry, grape, chenopodium, wild beans, false buckwheat, hog peanut, hawthorn, false Solomon’s seal, dropseed, bramble, and grass.

Showing respect is a strong part of Abenaki tradition. Permission is asked of the plant and of the Great Spirit, Kici Niwaskw. Patches are thinned, leaving some plants behind to continue the next generation. The tallest “Grandmother” plant is not picked—it is left out of respect for that progenitor of all others and to assure regeneration. Finally, thanks is offered, and a gift of seeds from that plant is left for future propagation, or a symbolic gift of sunflower seeds or tobacco to complete the circle and restore the balance. 

Michael J. Caduto is the author of A Time Before New Hampshire: The Story of a Land and Native Peoples (Brandeis Univ. Press/Chicago Univ. Press).

The waxing Sugarmaker Moon (Sogalikas). Photo: Michael J. Caduto.

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