Natural History
The flora at lower elevations includes deserts and xeric shrublands and temperate grasslands and shrublands biome vegetation. Higher elevation montane habitats include temperate coniferous forests biome vegetation, including groves and forests of various species of pine, cedar, juniper, aspen, and other trees, and understory shrubs, and perennials.
Intermountain West ecoregions include:
- Central Basin and Range ecoregion — North American Deserts; Level III ecoregion (EPA)
- Columbia Plateau (ecoregion) — Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (WWF)
- Eastern Cascades Slopes and Foothills (ecoregion) — Northwestern Forested Mountains; Level III ecoregion (EPA)
- Great Basin shrub steppe — Deserts and xeric shrublands biome (WWF)
- Great Basin montane forests — Temperate coniferous forest biome (WWF)
- Northern Basin and Range ecoregion — North American Deserts; Level III ecoregion (EPA)
- Palouse grasslands ecoregion — Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (WWF)
- Snake River Plain (ecoregion) — North American Deserts; Level III ecoregion (EPA)'
- Wasatch and Uinta montane forests ecoregion — Temperate coniferous forest biome (WWF)
Some sections are agriculturally cultivated with water diversions for irrigation systems. Cattle ranching is practiced in the region as well. Cultivated crops include corn, potatoes, sugar beets, grass hay, and alfalfa, the latter two crops are used for livestock feed.
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Famous quotes containing the words natural history, natural and/or history:
“The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to give us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural facilities: Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives, that they come from God.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)