All trees were located on the property on July 3,10, 21 and August 29, 1986 by Erwin N. Potter and Assoc. The map was completed on September 3, 1986.

Hi everyone! My name is Kiki Montgomery, and as a part of my internship at the Jay Heritage Center this summer and last summer, I have been studying and collecting data on the previous and current trees on the 23-acre Jay Estate. What started as transcribing an old document of the trees from 1986 has now turned into a fantastic research project on invasive and native trees, hopefully restoring the native plants to the land.

I began with learning about some of the mid-Atlantic regions' most invasive species of plants. I used the iNaturalist app to map out mugwort, wineberry, Japanese stiltgrass, and many more ecologically destructive plants around the property. Invasive species are harmful to the ecosystem of places like the Jay Estate, not only because of their lack of benefits to local wildlife, but also because the seeds spread and the resulting seedling outcompete the native plants. They usually take over large areas of the land, allowing nothing else to grow. One prominent example of an invasive species on the Jay Estate is a Norway Maple. In the document I transcribed, only one Norway maple was on the property in the 1980s; now there are over 200! Why is this? There is a possibility that some of the maple trees, such as sugar maple or silver maple, were mislabeled, and they were actually Norway maples, but it is more likely that the Norway maple seeds were spread by birds or the wind and now they have taken over.

It is super easy to identify a Norway maple. Norway maples have white sap, so if you see a type of maple in your backyard, pick off a leaf by the stem and look at the petiole and whether the sap exuded is white. If it is, you definitely have yourself a Norway maple! There is an easy way to fix this problem before it becomes too severe. You can replace Norway maples with other trees instead. Since Norway maples support zero to little wildlife, including insects, butterflies, and birds, entomologist Doug Tallamy suggests planting native trees like oaks, shagbark hickories, sugar maples, and American elms. This is the best strategy for attracting beneficial insects birds and other wildlife.

Slide back and forth to see a translated version of the picture and more!