The Forest Ecosystem Research and Demonstration Area (FERDA) was established in 1998 adjacent to the Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC) for the Adirondack Park in Paul Smiths, NY, to provide visitors with first-hand exposure to forest management activities and to provide research opportunities for scientists and students at Paul Smith's College. This research note is designed to provide an introduction to the plants found on the FERDA. It is primarily a list of what is where, but it includes an introduction that helps visitors to the area consider how and why different species of plants are found in different parts of the forest. The table of species can be used as a checklist by amateur botanists to keep track of the plants they find or as an aid to identifying plants by limiting the likely species to those listed in this paper.

The New York metropolitan area has well over 500 woody plant species growing without cultivation in its wild flora, and the species composition and distributions of these species are changing. For example, numerous native species that were once common are today exceedingly rare. Conversely, many introduced, nonnative species are becoming increasingly common. A new manual was deemed necessary to document these and other changes in the New York Metropolitan Region, which encompasses 25 counties within a radius of 80.5 km of New York, NY. We used records developed by the New York Metropolitan Flora project (started in 1989 by Steve Clemants of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden) to organize a manual of woody plants for the region. The 370,000 plant species records used come from 3 main sources: collections made in the field, observations made in the field, and published data. We compared records from two time periods for each species: 1990 through 2013 and all years prior to 1990. Distribution maps highlight the decline or spread of species and species groups across the two time periods. In addition, species with 10 records or more have a detailed description of the species' identification, nativity, phenology, ecology, biology, change in distribution, cultivation and management (for native species), management (for invasive nonnative species), and economic and medicinal uses. Associated dichotomous keys are also included. This information provides taxonomic, biological, and ecological background that may help explain increasing or decreasing trends and shared patterns and histories with other species in the region. This manual covers 443 species in detail, with 362 distribution maps and 178 illustrations depicting 334 species. It briefly mentions 89 other woody species.

This report describes the background calibration, inputs, and outputs of ForGATE, a forest sector greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting tool designed primarily to communicate information relevant to the evaluation of projected net GHG exchange in the context of Maine's forests, the Northeast forest sector, and alternative national or regional carbon (C) accounting guidelines. It also provides forest managers and policy makers with an easy-to-use tool for examining the relative merit (C credit revenue vs. project cost) of C offset projects and forest sector life cycle GHG accounting. GHG accounts include: 1) storage in aboveground and belowground live biomass and dead organic matter components; 2) storage in forest products in use and in landfill; 3) forest sector emissions by harvest, transport, and mills, or avoided emissions (substitution, bioenergy); as well as 4) landfill methane release and avoided emissions from methane energy capture. Different forest and forest product pools can be included in result summaries to reflect different C accounting guidelines (e.g., Climate Action Reserve, Voluntary Carbon Standard). Results can be compared for baseline and C offset project scenarios. Where possible, the marginal differences between baseline and project scenario performance indicators are calculated. All forest-level emission or storage measures are expressed in tonnes of CO2 equivalents for comparison purposes. Finally, economic indicators such as net present value and benefit-cost ratios for C offset projects can be evaluated using alternative assumptions for the value of stumpage, C credits, and offset project costs. The user enters their own inventory of stand type area by treatment regime data for baseline and offset project scenarios and can quickly adjust many GHG accounting parameters. ForGATE is available without charge from http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/tools/forgate/.