#those are azealeas on the last pic next to it

[aisling-saoirse]

Atlantic White Cedar - Chamaecyparis thyoides

The Atlantic White Cedar or AWC is a beautiful tree, one whose existence has been in conflict with american settler land practice. Individually, the tree has many desirable qualities: rot resistant lightweight wood, twisting fibrous bark, and a vertical growth habit. The individual tree means very little compared to unique ecosystems which these form in decent numbers. AWC grows in a unique niche wetlands habitat on sphagnum moss hummocks (essentially moss that has built up over plant debris over centuries) and creates their own habitat from their evergreen foliage. the growth habit of these trees is to form dark, shaded, moist environments protected from wind and sun, keeping a consistently wet habitat niche provides host to incredibly unique flora, such as orchids, carnivorous plants, and some of the rarest species in the region.

Where does the conflict with american land practice come in? To maintain their delicate existence, they require a consistent water level. One of the first things European colonists did was drain wetlands for agricultural land and damming streams. This caused less than 1/5 of the historic habitat of AWC forests to exist today, once clear cut most were unable to regenerate. Now presently most forests are dying from a combination of either sea level rise through climate change and inconsiderate storm water drainage which overload wetland ecosystems. Land practice of shifting hydrology and overdevelopment have really limited this ecosystem leading to it's globally threatened status. Most people only know of AWC from their ghost forest skeletons nowadays, few have actually walked inside one.

Being in an AWC forest is actually slightly eerie, while I love these forests I often find them to be difficult to navigate, dark, deathly silent aside from calls of strange animals and creeking wood. The trees themselves are so tall, beautiful, and interesting it makes it all really worth it. Cedars are often covered with mosses and lichen growing all over their trunks. There is always a chance of spotting a rare plant near them.

These trees are typically found within the coastal range of Maine to the Mississippi. These images are from the NJ Pine Barrens, however the oldest and largest populations are in North Carolina. Their habitat historically was more common in New Jersey, in fact the meadowlands used to contain a decent percentage of these forests before dutch settlement. Abnormal populations can be found in the Appalachian mountains of New Jersey, Georgia, and New Hampshire; something rather unexpected considering the geographic separation from their typical habitats.