I use Bryce,Amapi,Poser and Vue. Vue has the best foliage and trees etc and also has very atmospheric lighting. I don't know much about Maya or how Vue would work with it. I thought Maya was the big daddy of them all...can't maya create huge forests on it's own? If a friend of yours has Vue 5 (that's the version I have) I'd grab it anyway...what have you got to loose. I have had no problem with mine. It's a powerful low end of the scale 3D app. If you want to have a look at some of the things I have done with it pop over to my gallery on Zazzle and look at the Myths and Legends section...
Click here to go there!
Hope this helps a little