Tolerant hardwood
Also called Shade-tolerant hardwood
A hardwood species that regenerates and grows under a closed forest canopy, and can therefore be harvested without opening the stand.
Ontario groups its principal deciduous timber species as tolerant hardwoods — tolerant of shade, meaning seedlings survive under the canopy of mature trees rather than needing open ground. The Ministry of Natural Resources names seven: sugar maple, American beech, yellow birch, red oak, white ash, black cherry and basswood.
The classification is not botanical trivia. It is what makes the selection system possible: a shade-tolerant stand can be partially harvested every few decades and stay a forest throughout, which is a fundamentally different operation from a clear-cut.
Read the list against the six hardwoods a Toronto homeowner is shown and the interesting result is the absence. Red oak, hard maple and white ash are on it. White oak, hickory and black walnut are not — all three grow in Ontario, and none is a named principal commercial tolerant hardwood.
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Terms this one depends on
- Selection systemA silvicultural system of periodic partial harvests that keeps mature forest cover in place permanently, rather than removing and replacing a stand.
- Growing stockThe volume of wood standing in a forest — what exists, as distinct from what is harvested.
- Janka hardnessA rating of a wood species’ resistance to denting, used as one input among several in species selection.
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