Wissahickon Valley Park

The Wissahickon Valley is an 1,800-acre forested gorge running through Philadelphia's Fairmont park and continuing through Montgomery County's Ft. Washington State Park. It is designated as a National Natural Landmark. The Wissahickon Valley is a restored, managed wilderness that is a re-creation of the ancient mature forest where the Lenape once hunted. The Wissahickon Valley Park is home to a healthy American beech, Red maple, oak and hickory forest. Red oaks thrive on the lower slopes and the majestic Chestnut oaks perch on rocky crests. Black, white, pin, and scarlet oaks are found throughout the park. The tall, straight trunks of tulip poplars, the dominant forest tree, white pines, and eastern hemlocks still tower in the canopy.

Other trees in the park include sugar maples, silver maples, mountain maples, black birch, river birch, and gray birch, common alder, serviceberry, hornbeam, bitternut hickory, pignut hickory, green ash, American holly, whitegum, sweetgum, sassafras, and butternut. The understory layer is comprised of smaller trees like dogwoods, witch hazel, hornbeam, shadbush, Carolina silverbell and sassafras. The shrub layer contains shrubs, woody plants 4 to 12 feet high, like azalea, blueberry, viburnam, mountain laurel and spicebush. The herbaceous layer lies just above the forest floor and is composed of woody ground covers like trailing arbutus, partridgeberry, sedges, ferns and wild flowers.