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Wooded swamps are forest wetlands dominated by mature conifers and lowland hardwood trees. They are usually associated with ancient lake basins and retired riverine oxbows. Wooded swamps are important for stormwater and floodwater retention. They also provide habitat for wildlife including white-tailed deer, furbearers, songbirds, ruffed grouse, barred owl, and amphibians. Wooded swamps include Coniferous Swamps and Lowland Hardwood Swamps.
 Coniferous swamps are forested wetlands dominated by lowland conifers, primarily northern white cedar and tamarack, growing on soils that are saturated during much of the growing season, and that may be temporarily inundated by as much as a foot of standing water. Balsam fir may be a component in some stands. Soils are usually organic (peat/much) and can vary from nutrient-poor and acid, to fertile and alkaline or neutral. Tamarack typically dominates on the former soils, and northern white cedar on the latter. A continuous sphagnum moss mat is not present. Coniferous swamps occur primarily in and north of the vegetation tension zone. However, several large tamarack swamps occur south of the tension zone.
The Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory divides this community type into three separate community types: white pine - red maple swamp, northern wet-mesic forest, and southern tamarack swamp. Click here to read the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ community descriptions for these community types.
The wetland plant community description in italics above is excerpted from Eggers, S.D. and D.M. Reed. 1997. Wetland Plants and Plant Communities of Minnesota and Wisconsin. (2nd Edition). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul, MN.
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