Present in North Carolina since 8000 B.C., beech trees are not in the majority today but have maintained a definite forest presence. These large trees often dominate forests other plants are unable to grow because of the intense shade produced by dense layers of elliptical, long-pointed leaves, the depth of fallen leaves, and surface roots. White oaks and post oaks are found together, as are black oaks and scarlet oaks, and water oaks and blackjacks.īeech trees are divided into two main types: the American beech and the European beech. Turkey oaks seem to thrive mainly in the Sandhills. There is much distribution of species by region live oaks-often bearded with Spanish moss-are found only in the coastal plain, northern red oak only in the mountains. Thirty or so species of oak trees may be found in North Carolina, of which about half are quite common. The loblolly is extensively used in the production of pulp, paper, plywood, and lumber and is one of the most commercially important trees in the region. The loblolly, also known as the black pine and the Carolina pine, is the dominant pine of much of the Southeast. Of these, the loblolly and longleaf are the best known. Softwood forests, chiefly loblolly pines, cover almost 40 percent of the coastal plain.Įight of the 60 species of pine trees flourish in North Carolina: the loblolly, longleaf, short-leaf, Eastern white, pitch, pond, Virginia, and table mountain pine. Well over half of the coastal plain is forested, hardwoods once again taking up greater acreage with oak-gum-cypress and oak-hickory forests, although pine and oak-pine forests cover about one-fifth of the region's timberland. Softwood forests take up about 25 percent of the timberland, with loblolly pine forests being prevalent but Virginia pine and short-leaf pine also being important. Hardwood forest types cover about 74 percent of the timberland, mostly oak-hickory but with notable amounts of oak-pine and oak-gum-cypress combinations. In the piedmont, over 50 percent of the land has forest cover. White pine forests dominate the softwood areas in the western part of the state. In the mountains of North Carolina, 90 percent of the timberland belongs to hardwood forests, predominantly oak-hickory forests, although other combination forests such as oak-pine and maple-beech-birch also cover significant acreage. Indeed, settlers in the area designated the land either "oakey" or "piney," illustrating the prevalence of these particular types of hardwoods and softwoods. The three regions of the state are rich in a variety of trees, including loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf, and southern pine and upland and lowland hardwoods, especially varieties of oak. Broadleaved trees, or hardwoods, generally lose their foliage each fall. Conifer trees, also called evergreens or softwoods, have needles or scales for foliage and create cone-bearing fruits. North Carolina's tree population can be divided into two distinct groups. This abundance of species is due in large part to the wide variations in temperature, moisture, and soil that exist in the state's three geographic regions, the coastal plain, the piedmont, and the mountain region. North Carolina forests contain the largest diversity of temperate and tropical tree species in the eastern United States. Forests- Part 3: Efforts to Protect North Carolina Forests and Trees Part 2: Important North Carolina Tree Species
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