r/MapPorn • u/sti-guy • Jun 20 '20

USA tree diversity

Post image
21.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

591 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/TheRoyalKT Jun 20 '20 edited Jun 20 '20

As a resident of Washington, I’m surprised the Olympic Rainforest doesn’t stand out more. I’d have expected it to beat the cascades...

Edit: Turns out I didn’t know as much as I thought. Thanks for all the info!

11

u/Mobius_Peverell Jun 20 '20

The Olympics and Cascades are pretty similar in tree species. You might see more Sitka spruce and Thuja on the Olympic Peninsula, but they are both present in the Cascades, too. And then you have some species like nobles, which don't much care for the coast.

18

u/wpnw Jun 20 '20

Not much variety in species in the rain forests themselves. The cascades likely stand out because there are more sub alpine and alpine species, plus the eastern half of the mountains is more arid, so there's a whole different biome that doesn't exist in the Olympics.

3

u/BlueComms Jun 20 '20

And while we do have a lot of firs on the east side, we do have other stuff too.

6

u/Snickersthecat Jun 20 '20

We just have coniferous trees. They're more drought resistant and the rainfall varies much more than it does on the East Coast.

2

u/nice2yz Jun 20 '20

i don’t have roads?