What is the difference between a forest, a wood and a copse?

Question

What is the difference between a forest, a wood and a copse?

Answer 1

size, copse is smallest, then a wood, then a forest

Answer 2

A copse is no more than about 75 trees.

A wood is quite big.

A forest is big.

Answer 3

a forest is a lot of trees, a wood is what trees are made from and a copse is a dead tree

Answer 4

A copse was a woodlot or managed stand of trees regularly cut for use or coppiced. This gave people a supply of small wood. Some was used in wattle construction, fencing, some used as fuel. The trees regrow as a thicket of stems so the term came to be used with a similar meaning to thicket or dense growth of small trees or tall understory plants.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Vpy...

A forest is usually considered an area where the tree canopy interlocks to produce fairly complete shading of the forest floor, light penetrates in small patches. The canopy gets most of the sunlight but shields other plants from the brunt of wind storms and temperature changes. It has to be large enough that the light does not penetrate from the periphery. Woods and woodland are also used in this context but not woodlot.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/bi...

In other contexts woodland is means more open allowing sunlight in to understory plants. This is often a transition stage to a denser forest with full tree canopy or an area to dry to support denser tree coverage. Savannahs are called woodlands or tree savannahs.

http://thebirdzoo.com/Savannah%20Woodlan...

Answer 5

Nothing, really

Woods are just a colloquial way of saying forest, and carry the connontation of maybe a not as heavily wooded forest

A copse used to mean something else in England pertaining to how they cut down trees, but again now, it's just used to make names sound more rustic

It's kinda like how boulevard, street, and avenue, are all used frequently to describe what is really a street

Answer 6

Forest = Big.

Wood = Medium (a few acres, maybe)

Copse = just a little stand of trees all by itself.  Usually no more than 50 trees.