Characteristics:

• Tolerant of shading, slow-growing, long-lived, permanent overstory (north slopes).
• Naturally replacing other trees in the absence of disturbance throughout much of the eastern deciduous forest.
• Naturally maintained by reproduction in the understory.
• Lowest frequency of disturbance.
• Examples:

  Sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

  Black maple (Acer nigrum)

  Northern red oak (Quercus rubra)

  Basswood (Tilia americana) (Shown opposite growing in the wild)