North Pacific Hypermaritime Seasonal Sitka Spruce Forest
These are coastal forests dominated by Sitka spruce that often have a mixture of other conifers present, such as western hemlock, western red-cedar, or Alaska yellow-cedar. Western hemlock is very often codominant. These forests are restricted to areas within 25 km of saltwater and are most abundant along the coast of Vancouver Island, southern and northern portions of coastal British Columbia, the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, and the islands of southeastern Alaska. They live on the outermost coastal fringe where salt spray is prominent, streamside terraces, and valley bottoms near the coast where there is major fog accumulation. Along coastal bluffs, these are open forests with dense evergreen shrub understories, but a little further inland they are more typical, coastal tall conifer rainforests, with towering trees and prolific ferns. For more information, see NatureServe Explorer.
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