Continue a short way down the Meditation Trail from C1 Spy Rock. You will enter a series of descending switchbacks into a narrow flat area. This is the Southern Red Oak Grove. There are a number of Sothern Red Oak here, identified by light patches in its reddish brown bark and a distinctive three pointed leaf with rounded base. One of the last indigenous stands in Pennsylvania of a state-endangered species, southern red oak, also called Spanish oak or Quercus falcata, occupies the ridgetop of Long Point, alongside trees of at least six other species. 

The entire forest community here is unusual for Delaware County; it is a distinctly Northern Piedmont variant of Dry Oak–Heath Forest overlying gneiss bedrock. It is dominated by white oak, scarlet oak, northern red oak, black oak, black gum, and American beech. The sparse shrub layer consists of mountain-laurel and maple-leaf viburnum. The extremely sparse ground layer also includes isolated plants of poverty oat grass, partridgeberry, striped wintergreen, and white wood aster.

There is no regeneration (seedlings or saplings) of any tree species or mountain-laurel. Adult mountain-laurels have a sharp browse line 4 to 5 feet above the ground and the few maple-leaf viburnum stems are dwarfed and have severely browsed tips. This stand of southern red oak is critically endangered because none of the oaks here have successfully reproduced for several decades. All seedlings of oaks, other trees, and mountain-laurel are eaten in winter by the artificially high local deer population.

Latham, Dr. Roger. The Southern Red Oak Gove. Notes for the Chadwick Preserve. September 17th, 2023.