[blam]

I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.

[KoRn]

Very interesting. I’m fortunate to live in one of the darker ‘green’ areas. I love my trees and mountains!

Would love to see what that map would have looked like 300 years ago.

[djf]

I think half of them are in my backyard...

Serious! I got a couple 130 foot Doug firs back there and some pretty good sized cedars.

[Grunthor]

And I live riiight there!

[cripplecreek]

And that’s just trees. Lots of other densely vegetated environments that aren’t shown there.

[dangus]

I’ve heard that, too.

This map is very interesting, in terms of where they are (such as punctuating ferquently the great empty spaces of Nevada and Utah) and where they aren’t (such as a the inland “MIssissippi Delta” and a strange slash from Virginia (the Shenendoah Valley?) across Pennsylvania, and up the Eastern edge of New York).

[RetiredArmy]

I cannot believe all those people in the middle of the country cut all their trees down!! Simply unbelievable they would cut them down for firewood or too build wood houses! What were they thinking. Now it is just flat, grass covered plains. Oh, wait, that is the way God made it. My bad.

[Rebelbase]

I think the lack of green on this map is supposed to make us into tree huggers.

[Vince Ferrer]

I once saw a couple of pictures in a book showing some of the oldest photographs in Colorado from a geological survey in the 1800s, side by side with contemporary photographs taken from the same location. The contemporary photos always had more trees in them.

I was curious and for a couple of summers did the same thing, I checked out old photos in the library, copied them, found the same location, and almost invariably there were far more trees today.

There are several reasons for this. The railroads were a great cause of deforestation, and there were alarmist proclimations around 1900 that we were running out of trees. This led to railroads finding substitues, and eventually the automobile and diesel rail engines halted the railroad's over use.

Also, we stopped using wood for cooking and heat, and got connected to the electrical grid. And finally, we have allowed some lands that were in agriculture to go back to forests.

[Marcella]

I live in Texas green biomass. Recently had 10 inches of rain - glory!

[cripplecreek]

Large map.

http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/76000/76697/whrc_carbon_us_lrg.jpg

[PapaNew]

It’d be interesting to see the state lines overlaid on this map. We drove east on Interstate 70 from Denver through the Midwest and there wasn’t a tree around until just before Topeka Kansas, and suddenly, everything turned green. It was really amazing. Makes me think that the lower center green line is probably where that is.

[rlmorel]

Very interesting map.

It was interesting to me...my wife and I went to San Diego for a week a couple of years ago, neither one of us had ever been there, and we loved the climate, very comfortable, not too hot (late spring) but apparently there had been a drought for a while, and everything was brown, brown, brown.

We took a red-eye home, landing back in Boston around 6 am, and had a taxi take us the thirty miles home to the west.

The contrast was stunning to me. As we drove down this rural New England road on a sunny Sunday morning, the sun was streaming through the lush green trees in crepuscular rays, with just a hint of mist rising through them. We saw a deer on the side of the road...

We just take it all for granted, like people who live near the ocean and simply stop seeing it and hearing it. But after a week in a very arid Southern California, it was breathtaking to come home.

The politics up here are absolute crap, but it sure can be beautiful country.

[yarddog]

I once read that large areas of Alabama were open plains when the White man first arrived. This was not natural but due to Indians keeping it cleared for agriculture.

[bog trotter]

And I read on here a while ago that due to the logging prevention folks, our forests were now so continous along the northern part of the US that the barred owls are now taking over the areas formerly inhabited by the poor little spotted owl. In some cases, maybe even EATING them.
It ain’t nice to mess with nature..But can be funny sometimes.

[wardaddy]

I would not doubt it

My homestate...much like where you reside is covered in them

cept the Delta..but even it has some dense forests and forested swamps

[corbe]

I live in the middle of a Pecan orchard, none this year due to the drought (texas), so many trees here, I guess thats why Ferdinand Lindheimer (Texas botanist) moved here when Comanches were still roaming these parts. When I feel old I walk around the corner and theres a 175 year old Live Oak (I think it’s a live Oak), second oldest in Texas, Oldest being in El Paso and theres always the 5 foot thick cypress on the Guadalupe/Comal River. Welcome to the Texas Hill Country.

Though it’s gonna be in the 20’s tonight the locally supplied anti-freeze (Dripping Springs Vodka) is excellent.

[plymaniac]

Maine wins!!

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.

That quite possibly might be true. One problem with that, though, is that the species composition is very different. The current relative abundance of various forest habitats is maximized for timber production and other things. One side effect, though, is a loss of species diversity. A loblolly pine plantation and an old growth cove hardwood forest differ greatly in the species composition.

Probably 25 percent or more of all species are restricted to less common habitat types that occupy less than one percent of the land mass. Rare species are generally confined to rare habitats. (If they could survive well in common habitats, they would be common.) That is one of the reasons why the smaller patches of unusual habitat are more ecologically valuable than they would seem for their size.

[decimon]

We have more trees in New York than you have in Alabama. Ha ha! ;-)

[RnMomof7]

My house isn’t there.. I have 6 trees on my lot and woods next door..I love trees, they are one of my passions