Washington's Quinault Rainforest

Today we visited a beautiful rainforest in Washington.  It is on the Olympic Peninsula.  It is called the Quinault Rainforest.

The trees were old and beautiful.  I have never seen trees so big!  Just look at some of the photos that Mom took!

What is a temperate rainforest?  Temperate rainforests have mild, moist climates because of the ocean.  

The Quinault Rainforest receives over 100 inches of rain every year.   Because the ocean meets the high mountains on Washington's Olympic peninsula, they receive a lot of rain.

Temperate rainforests also have a lot of needle-leaf trees.  They have lots of moss and fungus and lichens.  They also have lots of fallen and dead trees.  These dead trees make a very fertile soil for new plants.

Washington has over 66 percent of all of our world's temperate rainforests.  

If you would like to learn more about temperate rainforests, just click on one of these links below:

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/projects/jason/xv/docs/TempRain.pdf
and
http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/education/factsheets/RAN_WhatIsARainforest.pdf