#old growth forest
Shadows of the forest…
Cathedral Grove,
Vancouver Island, BC. Canada
Coast to Coast~Shades of Black & White~Abstractions~
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Sometimes the best winter hike is right around the corner. Tibbs Run Preserve at the West Virginia Botanic Garden conserves the historic artifacts of the Tibbs Run Reservoir and a lovely old-growth hemlock forest, which - like all ancient forests - attains an incredibly intense, primordial beauty after a newly fallen snow. This natural gem nestles in a gentle mountain bowl only ten minutes outside the Morgantown city limits.
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Eastern hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis) is sometimes referred to as the “redwood of the east”, and once-upon-a-time, this was absolutely the case; great expanses of virgin hemlock forest cooled headwater streams and created their own unique ecology. But these old growth forests are largely gone now, with only a few remnant stands scattered along the Appalachian spine. A spring hike through a pristine stand of these gentle giants is an experience to be treasured, providing a rare connection to a primeval world nearly lost to us.
From top: Painted trillium (Trillium undulatum), a lover of old hemlock and spruce forests and the most beautiful and delicate of all the trilliums to bloom in this area; marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata), a moisture-loving violet with club-like hairs at the throat of its flower; heartleaf foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), which clumps gorgeously at the edges of seeps and brooks; halberd-leaved yellow violet (Viola hastata), an Appalachian endemic with sword-like leaves; and a red eft (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens) on a perilous journey in search of a pond environment, where it will eventually transform into an adult newt.
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