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High Mountains

Ecoregion in Blue Ridge, Appalachian Mountains in NC, TN

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The High Mountains ecoregion includes several disjunct high-elevation areas generally above 4500 feet. The region has a more severe, boreal-like climate than surrounding regions, with wind and ice affecting vegetation, and it has frigid soils rather than mesic soils. Evergreen red spruce and Fraser fir forests are found at the higher elevations, and red oak forests and northern hardwood forests with beech, yellow birch, yellow buckeye, and sugar maple are common. The spruce-fir forests have been affected by the balsam wooly adelgid, a non-native insect that kills mature Fraser firs, and some forest growth declines are possibly linked to air pollutants. Heath balds dominated by evergreen rhododendron and mountain laurel, and grassy

— EPA

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