The Hawaiian tropical rainforests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in the Hawaiian Islands. They cover an area of 6,700 km2 (2,600 sq mi) in the windward lowlands and montane regions of the islands. Coastal mesic forests are found at elevations from sea level to 300 m (980 ft). Mixed mesic forests occur at elevations of 750 to 1,250 m (2,460 to 4,100 ft), while wet forests are found from 1,250 to 1,700 m (4,100 to 5,600 ft). Moist bogs and shrublands exist on montane plateaus and depressions. For 70 million years, the Hawaiian Islands have been isolated from the rest of the world by vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean, and this isolation has resulted in the evolution of an incredible diversity of endemic species, including fungi, mosses, snails, birds, and other wildlife. In the lush, moist forests high in the mountains, trees are draped with vines, orchids, ferns, and mosses. This ecoregion includes one of the world's wettest places, the slopes of Mount Waiʻaleʻale, which average 460 in (12,000 mm) of rainfall per year.
Read more about Hawaiian Tropical Rainforests: Coastal Mesic Forests, Mixed Mesic Forests, Wet Forests, Bogs
Famous quotes containing the word tropical:
“Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)