The forests of Western North Carolina invite superlatives. “It is not possible,” wrote Maurice Brooks in The Appalachians, “for one who has visited the Great Smokies to revisit them without an upsurge of emotion. They soar, lifting the eye skyward as do no mountains….Many of their coves and slopes stand virgin, a forest as rich as our planet has to offer.”
Botanists call the Southern Appalachians the “vegetation cradle of North America”, and words like “refuge” and “sanctuary” are also frequently heard. During the Ice Age, the southward retreat of species in Europe was blocked in many instances by the massive east-west running Alps and by the Mediterranean Sea. In North America, the gentler north-south running Appalachians provided safe havens during the repeated cooling and warming cycles of the earth’s climate. Today, at least one hundred and thirty one native tree species inhabit the Southern Appalachians, compared to about eighty five in all of Europe.
Richest by far of the half dozen major forest types in Western North Carolina is the cove hardwood forest, sometimes called a “green cathedral”, which occupies the damp soils of sheltered coves and hollows at elevations between 1,500 and 4,500 feet. The internationally famous cove forests of the Smokies feature gigantic specimens of the following trees:
Most Plentiful Cove Species Local Circumference
Yellow (or Tulip) Poplar 25 feet
Eastern Hemlock 20 feet*
Yellow Buckeye 18 feet*
Sugar Maple 15 feet
Yellow Birch 14 feet
Mountain Silvervell 13 feet*
White Basswood 12 feet*
*At or near the national record for the species