Welcome to the Victor Hiking Trail Tree information page

1. Black Locust Trees (Robinia pseudocaria): This medium size tree is very common in the Victor area. It produces a heavy, hard wood which does not shrink or swell when wet and, therefore, was used as dowels for holding together wooden ships.

2. Honeysuckle (Lonicera sp.): A common wild shrub in the Victor Area which produces pink or white flowers in the spring and paired red berries in the leaf axil in the summer. This shrub provides excellent cover and food for birds.

3. Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum): This plant creates a carpet of green beneath deciduous trees in moist woodlands. In the axis of the two umbrella-like leaves is a white blossom which will produce an oval green fruit which turns yellow in the late summer.

4. Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa): A native dogwood producing a white, compound flower in the spring. This plant spreads profusely from suckers from the roots and forms a large colony of plants.

5. Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis) and Moneyworth (Lysimachia nummularia): One of the first plants to appear in the early spring, the skunk cabbage is pollinated by overwintering flies which are attracted to its foul odor. The sensitive fern is easy to identify by its bead-like cases of dried sporangia on stalks that persist through the winter. The Moneyworth gives a yellow flower in midsummer and its prostrate, creeping stems grow onto the path.

6. Maples (Acer sp.): Both sugar and silver maples are common along the trail. The maples are famous for their excellent wood, syrup from the sap, and ever their burned ashes used as ÒpotashÓ in pioneer soapmaking.

7. Beech Trees (Fagus grandifolia): The American Beech has a unique, smooth bark into which people tend to carve their initials. This is not a good idea since the bark is living and the trees in the northeast are presently stressed by Nectria bark disease.

8. Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera): The straight, tall trunk of the tallest of the eastern hardwoods is unsurpassed in grandeur. The name is derived from the shape of the leaf (like an outline of a tulip flower). A large flower is also produced and resembles a cone.

9. Yellow Birch (Betula lutea): Most important of the commercial birches. The bark papers are used by boy scouts for campfire tinder since they are flammable even when wet.

10. Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana): A common understory tree which has unique flowers with long, yellow, stringy petals and blooms in the late fall. An alcoholic extract of the bark in used for calming inflamed skin.

11. Beech growing in crotch of larger Oak: A strange growth location; note how the roots of the beech reach all the way down to the ground.

12. Forest Floor Flora: Here in the moist soil near the stream a wide variety of flora can be found ( see No. 5): a.Trillium: In the spring, three white petals and leaf arrangement. b.Cranesbill: Attractive purple-pink flowers all summer long, geranium-like leaves. c.Christmas fern: An evergreen fern with deep green fronds, projection on base of leaflet. d.Sensitive fern: last years dry bead-like cases on stalks e.Mayapples: two umbrella-like leaves with a flower or fruit between. f.Skunk Cabbage: large light green leaves radiating from a central point (in the late spring and summer) g.False Solomon-seal: an arching stem bearing ovate leaves alternating left and right. A white flower at the tip producing red berries in late summer.

13. Duckweed: Floating on the surface waters of the Black Lagoon is one of the smallest vascular plants. As summer lengthens the floating plants cover the entire pond surface and support an aquatic world of its own near the surface.

14. Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens): The climbing and somewhat choking growth habit will distort the stem of another plant on which it is climbing.

15. Scotch Pine (Pinus sylvestris): This pine was introduced from Europe and today is commonly grown for Christmas trees.

16. White Pine (Pinus strobus): The largest of the eastern conifers easily recognized by five soft, long needles in one bundle. The white pine is excellent for easily worked wood and in colonial times the tall tree was cut for use as mast timbers for English sailing ships.

17. Norway Spruce (Picea abies): Common ornamental tree with drooping branches and large cones.

18. Wild Multi-flower Rose: The rose family of plants includes not only the familiar rose but also the spiraea, hawthorns, crab-apples, blackberries and quince.

19. Hawthorn (Cataegus sp.): Some 800 species of this group are native to North America and most are armed with formidable thorns (also called the Thornapple). The leaves and fruit are excellent food for wildlife.

20. Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata): The curved plates of bark and nuts encased in husks are unique features of this tree.

21. Musclewood (Carpinus caroliniana): A native understory tree with distinct Òmuscle-likeÓ trunk ridges. Also called American Hornbeam or ironwood.

22. Open canopy due to lumbering: This woodland was selectively lumbered for oak in the winter of 1997. As the large trees were removed, the overhead canopy was opened for sunlight encouraging the growth of smaller trees and undergrowth.

23. Sassafras (Sassafras albidum): One of the few trees with three types of leaves on the same tree, see if you can find them. Of little value as a timber tree but famous for its ÒteaÓ made by boiling the root bark.

24. Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida): On the edge of the wood is a large dogwood still producing beautiful blooms in spite of its horizontal growth. The ice storm in 1991 toppled the tree to its present position. This tree has been magnificent for a long time, and the ashes of Mr. Dickens (the property owner in the 1940Õs) are buried around the tree according to his request before he died.

25. Basswood (Tilia americana): The wood of the basswood in soft and ideal for carving. The inner bark was used by the Seneca Indians to make rope and bowstrings.