As you wander through the forest, look for each of twelve native tree species that grow along the trails in Dog Woods:
* Douglas Fir
* Douglas Maple
* Western Redcedar
* Western Hemlock
* Bigleaf Maple
* Scouler’s Willow
* Red Alder
* Bitter Cherry
* Grand Fir
* Black Cottonwood
* Paper Birch
* Sitka Spruce

As we undertake restoration work in the years ahead, we plan to introduce other native tree species, including: Cascara (Rhamnus purshiana); Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), Pacific Yew (Taxus brevifolia), Pacific Crabapple (Malus fusca), and Oregon Ash (Fraxinus latifolia).

Some native trees found elsewhere on Guemes perform better in dry locations and are not present in Dog Woods: Shore Pine (Pinus contorta); Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii); and Western White (Garry) Oak (Quercus garryana).

Experience a globally rare forest community in Dog Woods

In 2020, Dog Woods commissioned an ecological assessment and restoration plan. Peter Dunwiddie, PhD, and Samantha Martin, Field & Fern LLC,  informed us that we have a “rare western paper birch forest community on Guemes Island [that] provides an extremely unusual opportunity to help conserve and restore a globally endangered habitat.” Forests with birch as a dominant component are “an extremely rare vegetation type, assigning it a state rank of ‘S1’ as well as a global rank of ‘G1’. Both are the highest ranks in term of rarity that can be assigned to plant associations, and both denote community types that are considered to be ‘critically imperiled’ at the state and global scale, respectively.” Furthermore, “Paper birch is virtually non-existent in the San Juan Islands, represented by a few isolated trees on only a couple of islands. Therefore, it is likely that the paper birch forests on Guemes are some of the western and southern-most examples.”