Forest
Diverse cove hardwood forests— which include yellow poplar, white oak, red oak, and hemlock— are found in the bottomlands along stream beds. The ridge slopes are covered by a mixed hardwood-pine forest consisting primarily of white oak, red oak, and hickory in moist areas and substantial stands of white pine, pitch pine, and shortleaf pine on drier slopes and ridgecrests.
While most of the forest is second-growth, two pockets of old growth forest remain within the wilderness area. One is a 187-acre (0.76 km2) stand of primarily beech and maple in the vicinity of Falls Branch Falls, which is easily accessible from the Cherohala Skyway via the Falls Branch Falls Trail. The other is an isolated 200-acre (0.81 km2) patch of hemlock near Glenn Gap.
Read more about this topic: Citico Creek Wilderness
Famous quotes containing the word forest:
“I was struck by this universal spring upward of the forest evergreens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrow seems always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, “not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father’s knowledge,” but they do fall, nevertheless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men’s heads and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)