Many of the forest trees were white oaks, and some may have been a thousand or more years old. These groves were revered by the Indians. Indians were fond of the mulberry tree. Smith notes: "By the dwelling of the savages are some great Mulberry trees; and in some parts of the country, they are found growing naturally in prettie groves."
Besides pine, oak and mulberry, there were, Smith writes, "... goodliest Woods as Beech, Cedar, Cypresse, Walnuts, Sassfras, and other trees unknowne." Chinquapin was one of the "trees unknowne."
Locust and tulip poplar were plentiful. Sweet gum, live oak, holly and cedar flourished in low grounds. Bayberry grew in the swamps and near the edge of the water.
When Captain Smith first saw the Neck it was bitterly cold, with "frost and snow," so he may not have seen the pine needles and scarlet turkey berries. The forest aisles may have been deeply covered with snow.
If the forest floor was covered with snow when Captain John Smith was led a captive across the Northern Neck in the winter of 1607, it is probable that he saw snowshoe rabbits scampering about between the big trees. Porcupines lived there too, and wild-cats, pole-cats and a marten known as "black fox." The little animal he saw with the spotted coat, like the skin of a fawn, was a ground squirrel.
John Smith saw the flying squirrel and the opossum for he describes them: "A small beast they haue ... we call them flying squirrels, because spreading their legs, and so stretching the largeness of their skins, that they have bin seene to fly 30 or 40 yards. An opassom hath an head like a Swine, and a taile like a Rat, and is the bigness of a Cat."
Ordinary squirrels, rabbits, foxes and "Rackoones" were abundant. Captain John Smith no doubt saw beaver at work when they crossed the many streams. "The Beaver," he wrote, "is as bigge as an ordinary water dogge ... His taile somewhat like ... a Racket, bare without haire."
The procession of Indians and the lone white man may have come upon a herd of heavy, slow-moving "Kine." (These were buffalo but are believed to have lacked the hump.) They were not as wild as the other animals of the wilderness. Perhaps Smith caught glimpses of the elk that roamed the forest.