Tree and Plants

Wrangell-St. Elias' sheer size gives it enough geographic space to support many different ecosystems.

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Tree and Plants Details

Wrangell-St. Elias' sheer size gives it enough geographic space to support many different ecosystems. Much of the park is mountainous covered with permanent ice and preventing most plant life from surviving. The river valleys, however, offer lowland with more hospitable growing conditions. Many regions of the park are made up of permafrost, permanently frozen sub-soil, where black spruce thrive and dominate the ecosystem. Under these spruce you can find forests of alder, willow, and blueberries thriving. The lower wetlands are primarily grassy with small shrubs and sedges. In between these ecosystems lies forested upland ecosystems with quaking aspen and paper birch (two species that thrive first after a forest fire) followed by balsam poplar and eventually white spruce and black spruce. A recent study in the park has shown that there are 936 individual plant species. For visitors interested in plant viewing at the park, a checklist is available at visitor centers to help identify plant species in the park.

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