Southeastern mixed forests grow in below the pines. Sugar maple ("Acer saccharum"), a shade tolerant tree, grows amid the oaks and hickories in the northern part of this ecoregion. Mesic forests occur in fertile, mesic, low-elevation habitats such as deep ravines and sheltered north- or east-facing slopes. Dominant trees include American beech ("Fagus grandifolia"), tulip tree ("Liriodendron tulipifera"), northern red oak, white ash ("Fraxinus americana"), black maple ("Acer nigrum"), sugar maple ("Acer saccharum"), basswood ("Tilia americana"), and bitternut hickory ("Carya cordiformis"). Understory trees include pawpaw ("Asimina triloba") and painted buckeye ("Aesculus sylvatica"). Mesic mixed hardwood forests grow on mesic uplands, ravines, lower slopes,
Luzula sylvatica least greenish throughout winter. The leaves can also help to differentiate the plant from similar-looking plants in the closely related genus "Juncus", as scattered white hairs can be found along the leaf edges. Its tepals are , with flowers which grow in groups of 3 or 4. From mid-spring to summer, "L. sylvatica " produces flowers in open panicles which are very small, chestnut-brown in colour and can be found in dense and lax clusters. "L. sylvatica" is sometimes stoloniferous. "Luzula sylvatica" is both anemophilous and entomophilous, in that it can be pollinated by either wind or insect. "L. sylvatica"'s