#virgin forest

Good quality wood. From a virgin forest .

Virgin Forest, Brillante Mendoza, 2022

Cathedral State Park protects one of a handful of virgin hemlock forests remaining in the Central Appalachians. Some of the trees here were saplings when George Washington made is his first survey of the Allegheny Mountains in the mid-1700s. What history they’ve witnessed. In addition to its botanical value, the park is a glorious place for a fall walk.

Old growth forest in Västmanland, Sweden, photo by Linda Andersson.

Rothwald virgin forest, the biggest remain of untouched woodland in the Alps and in Central Europe.

A hike through the virgin red spruce forest on Gaudineer Knob brings out a certain druidic yearning in me. It’s easy to imagine a spirit life behind the small miracles that unfold here - moss budding over ancient roots, a cool seep teeming with brook lettuce, fungi pushing up through the detritus - but it’s all so fragile and easily wiped away in an instant. If not for a surveying error over a century ago, this old forest wouldn’t even be here. So I am forever thankful when I visit that it survived and acknowledge (discreetly of course) whatever invisible spirits may inhabit its mossy nooks..

Virgin Forests of Romania. Semenic-Caraș Gorge National Park

Virgin Forest, Thomas Weir, 1969