Common tree species to be found on the Island and where to see them...

English or Pedunculate Oak is the dominant tree in most of the Island's woods today. It is probably our most abundant and widespread species, both in woods and in the open, although it does not grow well on chalk or in exposed coastal sites.

Sessile Oak is much rarer and confined to ancient woodlands on acidic soils. The differences between it and English Oak are subtle and are complicated by the fact that the two can hybridise.

In Borthwood Copse, in the central east of the Island you can find muti-stemmed Oak which would have once been coppiced. The bark was stripped from the young wood and sent to Newport; the capital for tannin extraction. Tannin was commonly used to process animal skins in the production of leather.

 Ash is probably our second most common native tree. It is found in all our woods and in the open. It does well on chalky soils and exposed coastal sites where it is frequently the dominant woodland tree.

Ash is not so long-lived as Oak, but trees which have been coppiced or pollarded will survive to much greater ages. There are some large ash trees around Shanklin in the south east and some big old coppice stools in Eaglehead Copse on Ashey Down, a reserve of the Hampshire & IOW Wildlife Trust.

English Elm would have been our third most common tree but with the demise of Dutch Elm Disease we no longer see it as a tree, only as saplings or in hedgerows. It is probably not truly native but was planted many centuries ago.

English Elm has an interesting distribution being concentrated around historic settlements such as Brading and Newtown. It is very tolerant of exposed, coastal locations.

Field Maple is an attractive, small native tree which is widespread and favours chalky and clay soils. It is a characteristic component of ancient woods and can be long lived when coppiced or pollarded. Large trees are rare and worth recording.

Beech is native in the New Forest and some other parts of Hampshire, but on the Island we believe that it is all of plated origin. It grows quickly and tends to be short-lived with us (in contrast to the New Forest situation) and our oldest trees are probably not much more than 200 years old.

Sweet Chestnut is another introduced species. It has been known in this country for many hundreds of years but we do not see the veteran specimens which are found in parkland on some mainland sites. It is indeed unusual to find a standard tree much more than 100 years of age. There are some resonably large coppice stools in Borthwood Copse. Here, Hazel was replaced by Sweet Chestnut in order to make the coppice woodland more productive.

 Sycamore is a very common tree on the Island which does well on all soils in all conditions. It is considered to be an invasive species; in other words it will colonise sites and displace other woody species. Sycamore develops into a very handsome old tree but these are very rarely seen on the Island. We have few trees over 150 years of age although there are some ageing trees near Wydcombe, near Whitwell and the Compass Tree in the Undercliff both to the south of the Island.

Evergreen or Holm Oak is very much a newcomer, beloved by the Victorians and doing very well in our climate. Indeed, it does too well and can be a problem when it aggressively colonises open ground of high nature conservation and landscape value. Nevertheless, it is a handsome tree and well grown specimens can be seen in many locations such as around the Osborne Estate and in Northwood Park, Cowes to the north. 

On St. Bonface Down, behind Ventnor in the south, holm oak was encouraged in order to provide a Mediterranean style backdrop to the town of Ventnor. At the time, around the beginning of the 20th century, Holm Oak woods were a common feature of the Mediterranean coastline. Today, they are very much scarcer and Ventnor's own holm oak woodland has been considered to be one of the best of its kind!