Christine Story, the Director at the time, realized that no sooner had she planted something than the deer devoured it. It was as if the deer were following her and unplanting everything she planted, so a seven-foot tall mesh “invisible fence” was erected.  Since then, every spring has offered an increasingly generous show of wildflowers.

One of the most beloved native wildflowers, Trillium, is found blooming in the Woodland Walk in May

What are lichens? They are symbiotic organisms made up from members of as many as three kingdoms: the kingdom fungi, kingdom Protista (algae), and the kingdom Monera, which are the cyanobacteria, or what used to be called blue-green algae. The dominant partners are fungi, which surround and cultivate the algae or cyanobacteria, or sometimes both, and use the byproducts of their photosynthesis as food. The relationship allows the algae and cyanobacteria to live in a much drier environment than they otherwise could, and allows the fungi to live above ground in places that do not have the organic materials that are their usual source of food.

isitors to the Mountaintop Arboretum get to wander through our modern temperate forest and it is a wonderful experience. But we should all appreciate that there have been forests right here continuously for almost 400 million years.  Throughout all that time forest ecology has been evolving into what we see today. But, if we can imagine ourselves returning back all those millions of years we would find ourselves in one of the world’s oldest forests: known to geologists as the Gilboa Forest. The fossils of this ancient ecology are preserved in many Catskill rock sequences.    The trees of Gilboa were, not surprisingly, very primitive. They go by names such as lycopsids and psueudosporochnaleans. They lacked proper leaves, had no fruit or seeds and were poorly rooted as well; we might hardly recognize them as even being trees.

One of the trees that grow so well at the Arboretum is the Fir, or Abies.  Our climate, geology, soil, and elevation all are perfect for this beautiful species, which includes the well known balsam fir, Abies balsamea. The very essence of Christmas, the balsam fir grows naturally in the East Meadow along the Fern Trail and in Black Spruce Glen. There are some fifty species of fir worldwide, and nine that are native to North America. The Arboretum currently has thirteen different native and non-native firs, mostly planted in the West Meadow Conifer area.

Harry Matthews started balancing stones following years of extended ramblings amongst stone circles and Neolithic sites in Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. “The more I create what I call my “Anthropoliths,” the more my understanding of balance, or gravity, grows.”  All the stones have been balanced first, then taken down and “fixed” with the steel roads and raised again.

Pines trees can live a long time. The oldest living known plant is a bristlecone pine, currently approaching its 4,842nd birthday.  Eastern white pine, common in the Catskills,  is the tallest tree in eastern North America. In natural pre-colonial stands it grew to about 70 m (230 ft) tall, but current trees typically reach 30-50 m (100 - 160 ft) tall with a diameter of 1-1.6 m (3-5 ft).  Very few of the original trees remain.  Extensive logging operations in the 1700s and 1800s harevested most of the pines for their valuable wood.  We rarely see pines above 80 feet these days, since reforestation has only been going on in the Eastern US within the past hundred years.

The white pine is an excellent tree of many virtues, but to the Europeans arriving on the east coast of North America during colonial times, it was an amazing tree--twice as tall as other trees back in England and continental Europe.  Huge, straight, lightweight, durable, the least resinous of all pines, it provided the lumber for houses, furniture, coffins, and boats as well as masts for the tall ships.