OLD-GROWTH RAINFOREST

Our region's ancient forests occur with the combination of two factors: "the occurrence of long intervals between catastrophic disturbances and the presence of species with great longevity."¹ Western red cedar and western hemlock are joined by amabilis fir and western yew. The understory is a tangle of salal, false azalea, blueberry and epiphytic (one plant growing upon another) mosses and ferns.

The canopy of old-growth temperate rainforests is multi layered and irregular, with giant conifers standing snags, and fallen nurse logs, which "may be home to billions of organisms --- microbes, plants, and animals -- most of them devoted to the business of decay, helping to process the dead wood into a form that living plants can use".²

More than half of the world's ancient temperate rainforest has been lost to logging. Tofino Botanical Gardens is very lucky to have a small piece of the remaining ancient temperate rainforest in our backyard. Some of these trees are between 800 and 1000 years old, beginning their lives as seedlings around the time of the First Crusade.

1. Pojar and MacKinnon, Plants of Coastal British Columbia

2. David Pitt-Brooke, excerpted from "Nurse Log" in Tofino Botanical Gardens Field Guide

"Old-growth temperate rainforests are among the most massive ecosystems on earth."
-Pojar and MacKinnon, Plants of Coastal British Columbia

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