Acadian Forest - The Appalachian soils and Maritime climate of Eastern Canada provide productive soils and relatively cool climate. The Acadian Forest Region is transitional between hardwood and coniferous forests; however, this region has particular soils and a climate which make it unique. Common species include three different spruces, five maples and balsam fir. People have been exploiting the Acadian Forest for nearly four hundred years and it still supports major industries of the Maritimes, but much of the forest has changed radically over time.#

Algae -A plant or plant-like organism of any of several phyla, divisions or classes of chiefly aquatic, usually chlorophyll-containing, nonvascular organisms.

Balsam Fir - The only fir native to the Northeast, it has a narrow, pointed, sphire like crown of spreading branches and aromatic foliage. Balsam fir is a major pulpwood species. It is also the preferred Christmas tree and wreath of choice and a major economic commodity in Nova Scotia.^

Basketry - The art of making baskets.

Beech Scale - A small insect with piercing-sucking mouth parts. The insect carries a fungus that is transmitted to the tree. The fungus kills the bark and cambian causing cankers which can eventually lead to the death of whole branches or the entire tree.

Beech - A large tree with a rounded crown of many long, spreading and horizontal branches, producing edible beechnuts which are consumed in large quantities by various wildlife.^

Bent Wood Furniture - Furniture made from curved wood formed by steaming or boiling, or by special finishing and then bent into form.*

Blowdown - A tree uprooted by the wind. Blowdown may indicate the presence of an insect problem, such as root rot. It is synonymous with windthrow.+

Bracket Fungus - A shelf-like fungus laterally attached to the trunk of a tree. It is typically associated with wood-decaying fungi.+

Calamity -An extraordinarily grave event marked by great loss and lasting distress and affliction.

Canker - A sharply defined lesion, often swollen or sunken in the bark of a stem, branch or root.+

Carpenter Ants - One of the largest members of the ant family, carpenter ants take their name from their habit of chewing passageways (called "galleries") inside wood. They live in these galleries and make excursions, most often at night, to hunt for food and water. These ants often set up satellite colonies inside homes from parent colonies located outside in a tree or landscape timber.

Cleaning - The selective removal of unwanted trees in a stand that has not yet passed the sapling stage in order to free the crop of trees from competition.+

Complex - A group of similar fungi or other organisms, commonly designated as a group because species differences have not yet been resolved.+

Conk - The visible fruiting body of a bracket fungus; also, the decay caused by such fungus.

Decomposition - The breakdown of complex organic materials into simpler materials by other organisms. These organisms utilize dead plant or animal material for nutrients and energy and in the process, breaks them down both physically and chemically into simpler organic molecule.^

Divining - To discover or locate (as water or minerals underground), usually by means of a divining rod (a forked twig said to move when held over ground in which water or metal is to be found).

Eastern Hemlock - Hemlocks are tall, stately trees with slender, usually drooping, leader and branches. Leaves are needlelike but blunt. Cones are nonwoody and small, about 2 cm long (up to 7 cm in mountain hemlock). Pollination occurs in spring and winged seeds are shed in late summer or fall. The root system is shallow and wide-spreading.

Fungus - A nonvascular plant lacking chlorophyll. Fungi obtain nutrition by absorbing nutrients digested by secreted exoenzymes. They reproduce by spores.+

Fungus Spores - The reproductive structure in fungi, consisting of one or several cells and not containing a preformed embryo.+

Geologist - A person who studies and works in the Earth Sciences.

Hardwood - Typically refers to the wood of broad-leaved trees. Hardwood timbers have a more complex cell structure than softwoods, including the presence of vessels and are considered to be a more highly developed plant form.+

Hormones - a product of living cells that circulates in body fluids or sap and produces a specific effect on the activity of cells remote from its point of origin; especially : one exerting a stimulatory effect on a cellular activity.

Lichen - A symbiotic organism created by the association of a fungus and an algae. Lichens live in a very wide range of habitats, from deserts to polar plains and the tropics, and can survive in harsh conditions that are too exposed for other plants. Lichen are very sensitive to air pollution and serve an important role as an indicator species.
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Lifespan - The successive stages through which an organism passes between birth and death.

Limestone - A sedimentary rock consisting mainly (more than 50%) of calcium carbonate, typically as calcite. Limestone is formed by a combination of organic and inorganic processes and includes chemical and clastic (soluble and insoluble) constituents. Many forms of limestone contain fossils.+

Litter - The top layer of the forest floor, litter is composed of relatively undecomposed organic material in the form of above-ground inputs, leaves, twigs and branches shed from the trees and below-ground inputs, usually the death of fine roots. Litter is the primary source of organic material into the forest soil.+

Lung Lichen - any of numerous complex thallophytic plants made up of an alga and a fungus growing in symbiotic association on a solid surface (as a rock) that resemble a lung.

Maple Clumps -A group of maple stems emanating from the same root or stump.+

Mi’kmaq - One of the nations of Aboriginals of Eastern Canada.

Mutualism - mutually beneficial association between different kinds of organisms

Nutrients - Usually refers to one of a specific set of primary elements found in soil that are required by plants for healthy growth. Any element or compound that an organism must take in from its’ environment in order to thrive or survive.+

Occurrence - something that occurs.

Old man’s beard - A type of lichen

Organic Nutrients - A specific set of primary elements found in soil that are required by plants for healthy growth and derived from previously living material.*

Overmature - A tree or stand that is considered to have gone past the point of maturity. It is usually used in the context of even-aged management areas.+

Overstory - The uppermost layer of foliage in a forest having more than one roughly horizontal layer of foliage.+

Phenomenon - an exceptional, unusual, or abnormal person, thing, or occurrence.

Pileated Woodpecker - Usually identified by its’ prominent red crest. Although mainly a forest bird, it has recently become adapted to civilization and has become quite numerous on the outskirts of large cities.^

Regeneration - The renewal of a forest or stand of trees by natural or artificial means or the stand of young trees under 1.3 meters high that results.+

Rudimentary - Botanically, a plant, plant part, or organ that is imperfectly developed and nonfunctioning.+

Shelterwood - A silviculture system used in even-aged stands in which groups of trees are harvested in a design that uses adjacent or overhead large trees for seed or to protect regeneration.+

Shrub - A woody perennial plant, typically lower than most trees, having multiple stems that branch from the base without a well defined main stem.+

Silviculture - The art, science and practice off controlling the establishment, composition, health, quality and growth of vegetation of forest stands. Silviculture involves the manipulation of the forest to meet the needs and values of society and landowners on a sustainable basis.+

Softwoods - Typically refers to the wood of coniferous trees, although a few hardwood trees have physically sot wood (eg. balsa or cottonwood). Softwood timbers have a simpler cell structure than hardwoods.+

Spacing - The distance between trees in a plantation, either at the time of planting or after the developing stems have been thinned out at any time in the rotation. The act of altering the distance between adjacent stems by increasing (planting) or decreasing (thinning) the number of stems per unit area.+

Species - A group of individuals that have their main characteristics in common and (usually) can only breed with each other.+

Stand - An aggregation of trees occupying a specific area and sufficiently uniform in composition, age, arrangement and condition so that it is distinguishable from the forest in adjoining areas. Stands are the basic management unit in silviculture.+

Symbiotic - A mutually beneficial association between two or more organisms. The living together in intimate association of two dissimilar organisms, so that the cohabitation is mutually beneficial. *

Trembling Aspen - The most widely distributed tree in North America, with a narrow, rounded crown of thin foliage. The name refers to the leaves, which in the slightest breeze tremble on their flattened leaf stalks. Principle uses of the wood include pulpwood, boxes, furniture parts, matches and particle board.^

Vegetation - The general cover of plants growing on the landscape.*

White Ash - A large tree with a straight trunk and dense, conical or rounded crown of foliage with whitish lower surfaces. The wood of White Ash is particularly suited for making baseball bats, tennis racquets, hockey sticks, polo mallets, oars and playground equipment.^

White Spruce - A tree with rows of horizontal branches forming a conical crown. The foremost pulpwood and generally the most important commercial tree species in Canada. As well as providing lumber for construction, the wood is valued for piano sounding boards, violins and other musical instruments.^

White Pine - The largest Northeastern conifer, a magnificent evergreen tree with a straight trunk and a crown of horizontal branches, one row added a year, becoming broad and irregular. Formerly the most valued tree of the Northeast, Eastern White Pine is used for construction, millwork, trim and pulpwood. The tall straight trunks were prized for ship masts in the colonial period.^

Wildlife Habitat - The natural environment in which an organism or population lives. Habitat may refer to all the organisms and their physical environment in a particular place.*

Witch-hazel - A slightly aromatic shrub or small tree with a broad, open crown of spreading branches and small yellow flowers in the fall or winter. A myth held that a forked branch of Witch-hazel could be used to locate underground water.^


* Dictionary of Forestry; Co-published by; Presses de l’Universte Laval; 2000

+ Dictionary of Natural Resource Management

^ Eastern Forests: The Audubon Society Nature Guides.

# Canadian Forestry Association