BALTIMORE — The oak, beech and tulip poplar trees of School House Woods stand a mighty 10 stories tall, their branches interlaced in a canopy so high you must crane your neck to see them. Fallen trunks crisscross the ground far below, their roots dangling into the leaves that carpet the forest floor. In this enclave some say is 10,000 years old, tiny sprigs emerge from decaying bark.
The 14-acre swath within the Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area in Queen Anne’s County, is one of nature’s rarest commodities: an old-growth forest — a woodland that has never been altered by humans.
Such forests have unique value, says Joan Maloof, a botanist, author and environmental activist from Berlin in Worcester County, as she gives a visitor a walking tour. They serve as filters for air and water, function as storehouses of genetic information, and represent living remnants of eons gone by.
