Adapting

I decided to head to the library today and pick up some books after hours of web browsing last night. I am so unsatisfied with all the answers I find. It seems as if no one has surveyed this area in particular. Here is what I have gathered:

1. This is a Piedmont region
2. This forest is in a riparian zone
3. The forest seems to be oak-hickory even though it is mostly tulip poplar
4. Possibly also some northern swamp forest (because of  all the skunk cabbage and spicebush)
5. Very species rich region

It seems that all of these things seem to have an affect on this particular area. We have a well defined canopy, understory, shrub and herb stratification. I guess I need to be looking for the following trees:

nothern-red oak, black  oak, scarlet oak, willow oak, pignut hickory, mockernut hickory, bitternut hickory, dogwood, sassafrass,  hophornbeam, hackberry, greenhawthorn, elm, sweetgum, black tupelo,  big toothed aspen, eastern hemlock,  holly,

Shrubs:mountain laurel, blueberry, maple leaf verbenum, deerberry, speckled alder, sweet pepper bush, arrowwood

These forests are so different then anything I remember coming across in Michigan even though some species are obviously the same. I think I grew up in mainly beech-maple forests. Florida is even more different! I don't know my hickories at all so I guess that is what I will be working on to identify.
The canopy seems to be mostly oak-hickory forest but the understory is mostly northern swamp forest. The northern swamp forest is a little more familiar to me. As an interesting aside, these forests use to be oak-chestnut until a fungus killed back the chestnut canopy. Now only chestnut shrubs can grow. I use to work with that particular fungus in the lab in college. Very interesting work.