The information below is from the US Forest Service. What is really nice about this database is the vast amount of information accumulated over decades if not century of time.
Included here and at this database are many species found together with these INDICATOR species. A forest is not all indicator species, so this listing by the US Forest Service includes the wide variety of species found in these habitats.
The picture above is the way a Mountain Laurel might appear by a roadside or in a forest. The picture below is it's beautiful flowers.
Mountain laurel (click here) occurs in the understory of a variety of habitat types and plant communities throughout eastern North American. It may be found within many plant associations of the southern and Mid-Atlantic states. While not intended as an exhaustive or definitive list, the following are specific examples of communities in which mountain laurel can be found....
...These forests are generally found at middle to high elevations in the central and northern Appalachian Mountains, often transitioning to spruce/fir or mixed hardwood forest at higher or lower elevations, respectively. Common overstory tree species include sugar maple (Acer saccharum), basswood (Tilia americana), yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis), black cherry, red spruce, white spruce (Picea glauca), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), northern red oak (Quercus rubra), white oak (Q. alba), and yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Understory associates include beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta), eastern leatherwood (Dirca palustris), red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa var. racemosa), alternate-leaf dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), bush-honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera), Canada yew (Taxus canadensis), red raspberry (Rubus idaeus), and blackberries. Carolina springbeauty (Claytonia caroliniana), snow trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), anemone (Anemone spp.) marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata), downy yellow violet (V. pubescens), hairy Solomon's seal (Polygonatum pubescens), starry Solomon's-seal (Maianthemum stellatum), hairy sweet-cicely (Osmorhiza claytonii), adderstongue (Ophioglossum spp.), Jack-in-the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), bigleaf aster (Eurybia macrophylla), and clubmosses...
Heath "balds" that form along the tops of the highest (>4000 feet (1200 m)) southern and central Appalachian mountain peaks are dominated by dense thickets of ericaceous shrubs. Mountain laurel is a dominate species of these habitats or may co-dominate with Catawba rosebay (Rhododendron catawbiense) at subxeric/submesic ecotones. However, a considerable difference in the distribution of these 2 species is present over an elevational gradient. Mountain laurel tends to favor the lower elevation balds whereas above 6000 feet (1800 m), where the highest balds exist, Catawba rosebay is common. Common shrub associates include Catawba rosebay, black chokeberry (Photinia melanocarpa), mountain sweetpepperbush (Clethra acuminata), highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum), mountain holly, possumhaw, blackberries, and American mountain-ash. Herbaceous abundance is limited by these dense thickets....
