I love to walk through woods and meadows in winter to spot unusual features of plants that I missed when I was distracted by flowers and leaves. So many subtle treasures exist when you look carefully.

For many trees, it is easier to identify them when they have leaves or fruits, but there are a few that have such unusual bark, all you need is a quick glance to identify them.

Often found growing along stream banks, the mottled bark of the American sycamore Platinus occidentalis, is easily spotted through a forest of trees or from a distance.

I have always used loose bark as a clue to disease, but the bark of the sycamore peels all year, revealing the brown, tan and green new bark underneath. In mid summer, the bark falls off in large pieces, larger enough to write on. I wonder if native people used this bark as a form of paper.

Though it goes by many names, the American hornbeam Carpinus caroliniana has distinctly sinuous bark which may explain why is it sometimes called muscle wood.

Hornbeam is a very dense wood, probably the densest in the mid-Atlantic forest and it is extremely hard. I once bent a pair of loppers on a limb. When I returned them to the store, the sales person asked me if I was cutting a steel cable with it. No, just ironwood.

Clues of herbaceous plants gone dormant can also be seen around the woods. There are a few species of woodland ferns that are evergreen, but my winter interest has also been to find the remains of the fertile fronds from ostrich and sensitive ferns.

The feathery plumes of ostrich ferns are a rich chocolate brown against newly fallen snow. And the tiny dark beads on the sensitive fern frond remind me of grape clusters.

Fruits as well as seed pods provide winter interest as well as important food sources for resident birds and mammals. The berries on red chokecherry Prunus virginiana burn bright against a blue sky signaling their ripeness to hungry birds.

The American hazelnut, a rare treat to find because of they are a favorite of several mammals including fox, squirrel and raccoon as well as many larger birds like turkey and blue jays, are exquisite in their clam shell shaped sheath.