Tip Toe Through the Tulips

The weather has turned just wonderful. Highs of mid 80s and really cooling off at night. We took advantage of the weather and headed for a walk yesterday with a couple mom friends. They were both patient with me as I marked what I felt easy to identify.
 On the way in to the woods I found a couple giant hemlocks in yards. Along the road there were about 20 smaller black walnut trees. Tulip, sycamore and maple were also abundant and easy to identify. One plant I couldn't figure out my friend knew as spice bush. It's a pretty generic looking smaller tree with single leaves of an average size and shape. Pretty indistinct until you crushed a leaf. It had a very spicy smell to it, very distinct. We found many more spice bushes the further we walked. Another tree that baffled me is what I think to be hickory. The leaves didn't look quite right and I want to look it up in more detail later to be sure.
As we walked on the dominant tree is by far the tulip tree. These were not all that common in Michigan and I am still a little disconcerted that a whole forest is filled with them naturally.  Apparently this is not true in forests 500 years or older so that confirms this forest is younger then that which I guess I already knew. Tulip trees grow tall and fast, are great for honey, and shade intolerant. I've always loved the unusual shape of the Tulip tree.

Family: Magnoliacea, Liriodendron tulipifera, related to the Magnolia tree

We saw some other plants that were pretty easy to identify: skunk cabbage in abundance, jack in the pulpit, black cherry and choke cherry, grape vine, and some of the healthiest poison ivy I have ever seen. Avoid touching any unidentified leaves in this forest. Many trees have the vines growing up them to make them appear as poison ivy trees!

All this foliage is poison ivy all the way up the tree! Toxicodendron radicans, very fitting