Baranof Island is covered in temperate rainforest. What parts of Sitka that are not bounded by the sea are typically surrounded by forest slopes of the mountains of Baranof Island. The mature forest consists of Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, and Yellow Cedar, with Mountain Hemlock becoming dominant at higher elevations.
The photo shows the lower slopes of Gavan Hill. The orange color near the bottom is spruce trees loaded with cones (there was a bumper crop of cones for both spruce and hemlock, but the spruce cones show up better from a distance). I think most of the lightest green/yellow trees are cedars, with the spruce trees tending towards the darker gray/green. The hemlock trees tend to be intermediate.
1 thought on “The Trees of the Forest”