the.com/old growth
A forest that never got the memo to apologize for taking up space.
means A forest that has developed for centuries or more without major disturbance, with large old trees, standing dead wood, and a layered canopy that young forests haven't had time to grow.
from A straightforward compound — 'old' plus 'growth' — that emerged in forestry and ecology language as a working term to distinguish ancient, undisturbed stands from 'second growth' forests that sprang up after logging or fire. Not a word with a dramatic ancestry; its power comes from the contrast it was built to make, old versus regrown, between forests that remember and forests that are still starting over.
- definition
- Never logged, shaped mostly by natural disturbance
- canopy structure
- Multiple layers, from moss floor to snag spires
- regrowth time
- Centuries, not decades, to reach this state
- carbon storage
- Holds more carbon than younger managed forests