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In the mountain forests of southern California, you don't see that many varieties of trees, on average. I'm not saying that a few trees of each type may not be located over a vast acreage, what I'm saying is that to the observer, all one sees, on average, is no more than four types of trees that are naturally growing. It is nothing like the Southern Appalachians, where from one location a person, up close, can spot perhaps a dozen or so naturally occurring types of trees.
Sure you can. I have been traveling to the mountains around Southern California for the last 19 years, and having gone there in 6th grade for "science camp", I was informed of this. Maybe someone who is ignorant and doesn't know much about flora would see your point of view.
I've been to a lot of the Eastern U.S. forested areas and to be honest it all looks very generic. I could not tell you the difference between a forest in Pennsylvania or a forest in Tenesee or a forest in Illinois. But in the west the forests are so much more unique. In CA alone I could go visit the largest tree in the world:
General Sherman Tree, Sequoia National Park. 275 feet tall, 102.6 foot circumference, 2,200 years old.
The tallest tree in the world:
Hyperion, Redwood National Park. 379 feet tall.
Even the worlds oldest tree:
Methuselah, 11,000 feet above sea level in the White Mountains of CA. 4,838 years old. Also the worlds oldest non-clonal living organism.
http://travelingsnote.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/methuselah-tree.jpg (broken link)
Georgia also has more acreage covered in forest and trees today than it did at the time of the Civil War 150 years ago ...
Actually the same would be true of New York State. Many rural areas in Central and Western NY had their population peaks in the 1860 Census. (That's going by individual towns, what in other states would be townships.) The State government actively aided resettlement in the 1920s and 1930s, see History Of State Forest Program - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation and even since then there have been more farm lands reverting to forest on their own than cleared for suburbia.
I've met westerners who say the feel CLAUSTROPHOBIC in the east because of the trees -- they like being able to see across a horizon for miles and miles. Thought that was strange. I LOVE the trees and feel naked and exposed in those neighborhoods out west. Anybody else feel that way?
I didn't feel that way in eastern states.
But I have read posts on backpacking sites where easterners said the the east will never feel the same to them again after experiencing some west coast forest hiking.
Here's another west coast tree just for some window dressing.
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