Flora

Accustomed to the denuded European landscape, early settlers to New England were bowled over by the deep forests full of timber and game as far as the eye could see. Soaring pines, stretching oaks, and stately chestnuts filled the new land, prompting superlatives in many a Puritan’s travel journal. While centuries of lumbering have taken their toll on the woods of the region, much of New England is still appealingly forested. In recent decades, abandoned farms have been reclaimed by the trees, creating even more wooded landscape. And unlike clear-cut land out West, the North Woods of Maine [1] have for centuries been home to sustainable logging practices that have kept the wilderness wild.