Alabama Landscapes

Vegetation

A fortuitous combination of climate, geology, and soils has resulted in one of the most diverse flora in the United States. Over 70 species of oaks occur throughout the state, not to mention about 3,000 species of native and naturalized flowering plants. Add to that over 200 species of other hardwoods, conifers, native shrubs and woody vines and Alabama is a botanist's nirvana.

In common with the eastern part of the United States, lush forests of both deciduous and evergreen trees dominated Alabama's original vegetation. However, by the time European settlers reached Alabama, Indians had already modified this cover in places. De Soto's expedition in Alabama (1540) described villages with extensive cornfields. (Interestingly, the word Alabama is derived from the Choctaw term for “clearers of the thicket.”) Clearing continued throughout the intervening 400 years: today only about 68% of Alabama is still covered with forest.
 

Alabama's native vegetation belongs to the Mid latitude broadleaf and mixed forest biome (a biome is an ecosystem characterized by specific animals and plants). Mature trees reach 100 to 150 feet in height. These trees form a closed canopy in summer, with smaller, shade-tolerant trees and woody vines growing beneath them. Leaf litter accumulates on the ground. Deciduous broadleaf trees, such as oaks, hickory, sourgum and poplar, are most common, though needleleaf evergreens, such as the pines, occur where soils are not as fertile, i.e., sandier, thinner or more acid. These forests are about 46% dominated by hardwoods, 20% oak-pine forests, and 34% dominated by pines. As a broad generalization, pines dominate the southern regions of the state, mixed pines and hardwoods dominate the central part and hardwoods dominate the northern part of the state (Figure V1).

Figure V1.  Vegetation of Alabama.  Black broken line: approximate physiographic section boundaries.  Black dots (N to S): Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile. (Simplified from http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/fpdc/alforest.html)

END