As in the transitional forest, Striped Maple, Mountain Holly and Mountain Ash form an understory. A feature of the Mountain Holly is a tendency to retain its leaves, which remain a sickly green into September. Perhaps significantly also, no Black Birch were sighted in the area, although it is possible that this species was missed or confused with the abundant Yellow Birch. Shrubs are neither abundant nor diverse in this forest. The only other shrub of importance is Southern Mountain Cranberry, which is scattered throughout, and which on both visits bore its characteristic isolated and insipid red berries, even in quite deep shade.
Herbs are few but distinctive.
Dominating all is an almost continuous blanket of the bright green Bazzania trilobata , which not only occupies the forest floor between the spruce, but climbs up the lower trunks. This plant, which turned hands and face green on contact, might be a moss, liverwort or a lichen. Since it was raining and turning dark, there was not time to study it closely. It is likely however that the shedding is a mechanism of propagation. Fungi included species of Russula and Amanita flavoconia .