Our place on the Planet

Our deciduous forests – forests that explode into bloom even as trees lose their leaves in fall and winter – are the most diverse of their kind in the nation. Our unusually rich assortment of broadleaved trees – oaks, hickories, elms, ash, buckeyes, maples, to name a few – nourish a spectacular show of spring wildflowers – bluebells, trilliums, spring phlox, bloodroot, and many others – that rise and flower in the waning days of winter and with the arrival of spring light.

The deep temperate forest is not the only ecosystem that makes this region special. Sweeping grasslands and savanna-like forests with scattered trees were once dominant over many areas, and we can see their remnants in the sun-loving wildflowers and shortleaf pines that still dot the landscape. It is quite likely that this region is a global center of sunflower diversity; one can find a dozen different kinds of sunflowers and their close relatives, the silphium, blooming among our native grasslands. In the open light of shortleaf pines, these and other flowers – royal red and blue lobelias, purple asters and blazing stars, waving anemones and larkspurs – bloomed spring, summer, and fall.