
DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709250175

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  131 lines

WATCHING THE FOREST GROW WILDFLOWERS, RARE ORCHIDS, A VARIETY OF FERNS AND A LOT OF TREES WILL BE AROUND FOR BEACH RESIDENTS TO ENJOY IN THE NEW 500 YEAR FOREST FOR CENTURIES TO COME.

WHENEVER ENVIRONMENTAL engineer Wayne McCoy walks back in the new 500 Year Forest in a shady, green triangle of land bordered by West Neck Creek and Harpers Ditch, he makes another discovery.

``Every time I go out, I see something that I hadn't seen before,'' McCoy said.

That day rattlesnake plantain, an unusual little forest orchid, was McCoy's new find. The orchids have dark green leaves with a white center streak, and grow so close to the forest floor, they almost carpet the area in certain spots.

McCoy was trudging through briars and undergrowth that day with naturalist Vickie Shufer identifying various plants and trees that live in the woodland. Rattlesnake plantain is only one of many pleasant discoveries the pair has come across in this 100-acre tract that developer Dickie Foster donated to a fledgling group called The 500 Year Forest Foundation.

Foster's forest behind the Lake Placid neighborhood is the foundation's first acquisition. Within the next five years, it hopes to acquire and preserve 100 forests in urban settings in Virginia and on the East Coast.

Here, young red maple, sweet gum, tulip poplar and other hardwood trees, perhaps 50 to 100 years old, grow on bottom land along the waterways and on high land in the interior. Although the area has been logged in the past, these trees will be left undisturbed to grow for centuries more, thanks to the protection that the foundation will provide.

Wildflowers, like the rattlesnake plantain and other rare orchids, grow in the shady habitat. Ferns, among them adder's tongue, chain, New York and royal ferns, are forest floor coverings in spots, too.

With habitat much like the Dismal Swamp, McCoy wonders if The 500 Year Forest isn't also home to the Dismal Swamp shrew, a Virginia Endangered Species. Signs of other small mammals, as well as deer, abound.

The property was part of a 400-acre tract that Foster, owner of Baymark Construction Corp., purchased several years ago. He is clearing the other 300 acres for a new residential development called Castleton off London Bridge Road. But The 500 Year Forest will remain forest ``essentially forever,'' said Ted Harris, a retired Lynchburg businessman.

Harris, a member of the Virginia Urban Forest Council, came up with the concept of urban forests that are protected and managed ``essentially forever'' after reading about England's Woodland Trust. The trust was founded in 1972, to conserve that nation's trees.

The Urban Forest Council, of which Foster also is a member, is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the value of trees here in Virginia. Harris is serving as chairman of a council committee that is seeking tax-exempt, nonprofit status for the foundation so it can raise an initial $10 million to maintain its forests.

Foster recalled the council meeting over a year ago when Harris raised the idea of establishing The 500 Year Forest Foundation. The developer had just come to realize that he had an unusual piece of woodland tucked back along the creeks.

``It's special,'' Foster said. ``You can feel it.

``I didn't have a name for it except `forest' '' he added. ``After the meeting, I said, `I've got the perfect place.' ''

So Harris had the idea and Foster had the forest and The 500 Year Forest, a brand new concept for the United States, was up and running.

Most of the trees are young, less than 100 years old. In a setting just two miles from Lynnhaven Mall, Virginia Beach residents will have the opportunity to watch a forest grow to full maturity, rather than to see another one cleared for development.

``We're always talking about old growth forests,'' Foster said. ``But here we're taking a new forest and letting it grow into an old forest and see the evolution.

``Now, we can show children that if a forest is left to mature,'' Foster said, ``this is would it would look like.''

McCoy, a vice president with Miller-Stephenson & Associates, an environmental sciences, planning, surveying and engineering firm, is working with Foster to design a system of trails, overlooks and maybe canoe landings so children and grown-ups, too, can see the maturing forest up close.

McCoy even dreams of an environmental education center staffed by volunteers who know the trees, plants and land topography. With guidance and easy access, the public can come to know the discoveries that McCoy and Shufer have made.

In fact, rattlesnake plantain was the least of the surprises Shufer came across on her botanical forays. Last spring she was walking through heavy grassy growth of the spring forest when the landscape changed.

``I suddenly became aware I was standing in the middle of a bed of trilliums,'' Shufer said.

Least trilliums are tiny rare plants that are listed in the state as a plant of special concern because they reach their southern limit here on the coastal plain of Virginia. Several years ago, they were discovered in Virginia Beach for the first time.

Trillium is just one of the rare plants that grow in the wetter areas of The 500 Year Forest. Shufer also came across an unusual yellow fringed orchid, another denizen of the low lands, whose relative the white fringed orchid is an endangered species.

She also has seen pink lady slippers, Jack-in-the pulpits and other less rare, but equally beautiful species. ``I was excited about a lot of the wildflowers I saw,'' Shufer said.

But a tree provided Shufer with the most excitement. She came across a huge overcup oak, 17 feet in circumference, that is probably close to 400 years old. The ancient, gnarled tree near the creek bank escaped loggers years ago and now towers above the young trees coming up in its shadow.

Although the overcup oak, named for the way its acorn cup encloses nearly all of the nut, is a resident of southern hardwood swamp areas, it has never been recorded in Virginia before, Shufer said.

Those are the kinds of surprises that Harris and Foster hope The 500 Year Forest will continue to bring for generations to come. ILLUSTRATION: Photos including color cover by PHILIP HOLMAN

Naturalist Vickie Shufer, above, walks along Harpers Ditch, a creek

that runs through a section of Virginia Beach woodland being set

aside for the 500 Year Forest. Wayne McCoy, right, an environmental

engineer, stands in a patch of chain ferns in the shady triangle of

donated land.

Coreopis, or tickseed.

Rattlesnake plantain

Naturalist Vickie Shufer discovered a huge overcup oak, 17 feet in

circumference, in the new 500 Year Forest. The gnarled tree is

probably close to 400 years old.

Harpers Ditch runs through the woods that developer Dickie Foster

donated to the 500 Year Forest Foundation.