Differences in ground cover between our site and a deciduous site

As we observed our site, we didn’t notice much ground vegetation in the inside edge due to the lack of sunlight penetration to the forest floor because of the Conifers growing there. We wanted to compare the vegetative growth of the inside edge of our study site to that of the inside edge of a deciduous site to see what differences we could find. Our site had sparse vegetation of mostly Virginia creeper Poison Ivy, garlic mustard, and Honeysuckle bushes. The forest floor was not completely covered by herbaceous or woody growth. In fact, plant growth covered less than 50% of the grounds surface. When comparing this to a neighboring deciduous plot, we found the exact opposite. A wider variety and quantity of both herbaceous and woody vegetation covered nearly the entire ground surface in the inside edge. This must be due to the fact that the inside edge of a deciduous area receives plenty of sunlight penetration in the springtime because there are no leaves to block out sun to the forest floor, unlike conifers which have leaves all year round. Also, we noticed that pine needles were more brittle, waxy and dry than the leaf debris in the deciduous plot, and the needles formed thick carpeting over the forest edge. The leaves in the deciduous plot on the ground were moist and rotting while the needles in our plot were dry and did not seem to be rotting. This must also be a contributing factor in ground vegetation.