Thursday, July 28, 2011

Writer in the Woods


The average rainfall in the Olympic National Rain Forest is between 110 and 160 inches annually - the greatest in the United States. Unlike the equatorial rain forests, our summers can have long periods of no rain at all. If the weather does choose to be wet while I visit our cabin, reading a good book is my favorite thing to do!


Our fourth featured plant is the prickly Devil's Club. It is usually found in moist places like creek bottoms, swamps, and ditches. It grows in groups of stalks between 5-10 in number, developing from a spreading root system. Although this plant is known to grow between three and five feet tall - in the Olympic National Rain Forest it can be seen as tall as sixteen feet!