From Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Mountain system was once almost totally covered with forest. Today some of the best and most-extensive broad-leaved deciduous forests in the world still flourish in the Appalachians and bordering areas, notably in southern Appalachia. To the north are the conifers (red spruce and balsam fir, which grow at the highest elevations and distinguish the Canadian and Maine woods) and the northern hardwoods (sugar maple, buckeye, beech, ash, birch, and red and white oak). Farther south are hickory, poplar, walnut, sycamore, and at one time the important and—before they were destroyed by blight—plentiful chestnuts. All of these, plus other of the 140 species of trees of Appalachia, are found in the southern mountain region. Lofty elevations nurture representatives of the Canadian forest, while the western slopes of the Great Smokies, with their abundant rainfall, produce trees that have reached record maximum height and diameter. Among these are the tulip tree (yellow poplar), buckeye, eastern (Canadian) hemlock, and chestnut oak.

The interdependent system of southern plant growth known as the “Appalachian forest” is highly complex. It forms one of the great floral provinces of the Earth. There are the trees that bear luxuriant bloom, such as serviceberry, redbud, hawthorn, tulip tree, dogwood, locust, sourwood, and many others. Among the numerous shrubs with particularly showy flowers are the rhododendron, azalea, and mountain laurel. Certain summits of the southern Appalachians are called heath balds—open meadows or grasslands interspersed with thick growths of heath. Roan Mountain in the North Carolina–Tennessee Unakas is one of the most extensive of these, with some 1,200 acres of natural gardens sprawling vivid rose and pink and purple rhododendron across its high pinnacle and down its slopes. It is estimated that, of some 2,000 species of Appalachian flora, perhaps 200 are native and wholly confined to the southern Appalachians. Ferns, mosses, and mushrooms of many species also are part of the complex Appalachian plant life.

Bison, elk, and wolves, once common to the Appalachians, disappeared long ago, although elk subsequently have returned to the northern mountains; caribou and moose are still found in the northernmost corners of the region. Scattered through other areas are the black bear, white-tailed deer, wild boar, fox, raccoon, beaver, and numerous other small animals. All areas of Appalachia, from the Gaspé Peninsula to Georgia, support an abundant birdlife. In the Great Smoky Mountains alone some 200 varieties of game birds and songbirds have been recorded.

Settlement and expansion

Various Eastern Woodlands Indian groups, including the Pennacook, Mohican (Mahican), and Susquehanna, inhabited the northern half of the Appalachians for centuries before European settlement. In the southern mountains, the Cherokee were predominant. Warfare and eviction had driven most of the Indian populations from the mountains by the mid-19th century. The so-called Trail of Tears, the forced march of the Cherokee to Oklahoma in the fall and winter of 1838–39, is perhaps the best-known episode of Indian removal.

The long blue wall of the Appalachians thrust up a mighty barrier to colonial expansion. Exploration and settlement was further discouraged by the size and complexity of the lateral mountain ranges, the rugged courses of many of the streams and rivers, and the ubiquitous dense forest. The central Appalachians, with their more spacious water gaps affording easy passage, attracted the largest number of early settlers. Many of these were Germans and Scotch-Irish who went into the interior of Pennsylvania and subsequently migrated down the Great Appalachian Valley in Virginia and Tennessee. In the New England Appalachians the narrow notches, often blocked by glacial debris, and the steepness of the mountains discouraged early settlement—as did the massive ruggedness of the successive ranges in the southern Appalachians—so that each of these regions remained a wilderness long after the American frontiersman Daniel Boone had forged his pioneer route through the Cumberland Gap. During the French and Indian War (1754–63), trails to the Ohio country and Great Lakes led through central Appalachia, and these, with their scattered lonely forts of the interior, became brutal battlegrounds of border warfare. Indian allies of the British waged bloody skirmishes against Appalachian settlements during the American Revolution (1775–83), but the Appalachian Mountains confined most of that struggle for independence to the Eastern Seaboard.

Economic growth

The diversity that characterizes Appalachian plant and animal life also exists in the system’s mineral resources. As the immense stands of timber throughout the Appalachians brought into existence important lumber and wood-pulp industries, so rich coal beds, veins of iron ore, salt springs and licks, and deposits of granite and marble created major American industries in the region. Each of these has been attended by its own peculiar problems, especially in the field of conservation. There is, for instance, pollution of Appalachian waterways by the pulp and chemical industries and the devastation of land and human resources brought on by certain coal-mining operations. Air pollution, especially in the form of acid rain and fog, has taken a toll on Appalachian forests from North Carolina to Canada. The pinnacle of the Appalachians, Mount Mitchell, once called Black Dome because of its blanket of virgin evergreens, is now a ghost forest of dead trees.

Despite the early arrival of the lumber industry and the opening of the coal mines, some areas of Appalachia remained isolated until early in the 20th century, notably those mountain areas of the southern region where rough terrain hindered road building. As a consequence, Southern Appalachian highlanders developed a distinctive culture characterized by handicrafts, ballads, folklore, and mores that reflect both the massive problems and the rich potential of the region.