I recently took a last-minute trip to the southeastern United States.
In addition to surprising my uncle for his 65th birthday, I admired all the trees I don’t usually see back home in Pennsylvania: water tupelo, willow oak, southern red oak, loblolly pine, shortleaf pine, sugarberry, and dozens of others.
I eventually lost count of all the trees I saw. As it turns out, there was a good reason for that: more native tree species grow in the Southeast than in any other region of the contiguous United States.
But why?
Why is the Southeast so special? And why don’t other regions of the U.S. — like the Northeast, the Midwest, or the Pacific Northwest — support such an incredible variety of native trees?
In the following video, I dive into the fascinating story behind the Southeast’s remarkable tree diversity.