I don't have time for a real blog post but this (Bialowieski National Park) is where I went today with Michal Chaniewski and Mirek Praglowski and our wonderful guide, Asia . The forest has been untouched for hundreds of years and therefore thrives in a very natural state. Even the Elms are safe from Dutch Elm disease here.
To the left is a quick pic for now of a maple thickly covered in moss (there are many mosses and over 400 varieties of lichen!).
below are Asia and I marveling at the enormous root system of a, oh geeze, I can't remember which tree that was either. the root system is some 25' in diameter, but only about 30cm deep, which is why the tree toppled so handily.
I don't know how I'm ever going to remember all of the trees. There were lots of oaks and pines and maples (of course, I'm not even trying to id the actual species) as well as a very entertaining tree called (must come back and fill in the blank). We only saw two red deer from afar and evidence of wild boar's recent digging. None of the famous bison came out to see us.
