Coastal Forests
The coast of California north of San Francisco contains the Northern California coastal forests (as defined by the WWF) and the southern section of the Coast Range ecoregion (as defined by the EPA). This ecoregion is dominated by redwood forest, containing the tallest and some of the oldest trees in the world.
The redwood forests thrive in a thin belt up to 35 miles (56 km) wide next to the coast, where the trees are kept moist by winter rains and summer fog. The redwood forests are also notable for having the highest forest productivity in the world.
Read more about this topic: Natural History Of California
Famous quotes containing the word forests:
“The civilized nations—Greece, Rome, England—have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)