A forest of mainly broad-leaved, deciduous trees is the native vegetation of much of eastern North America. Narrow fingers of this forest, growing along rivers, penetrate westward into the interior grasslands. Early settlers from Europe cut most of the eastern forest, but second-growth forest now covers considerable areas. The plants are closely related to plant species of the temperate deciduous forests in Europe and Asia. In contrast, the plants of other biomes in North America are generally not closely related to the plants that occur in the same biomes elsewhere in the world, although they look similar.
In the eastern deciduous forest, maple and oak are widespread maples especially in the north, oaks in the south. There are major subdivisions within the forest. These include oak and hickory forests in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, eastern Texas, and also in the east Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia where oak and chestnut forest formerly predominated, beech and maple forest in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, and maple and bass-wood forest in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The forest in parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New England contains not only deciduous trees but also evergreen conifers, including pines and hemlock. Vast native pine stands in the Great Lakes states have been cut for lumber.
Plant diseases have changed the composition of the eastern forest. American chestnut was once an important tree but has now nearly disappeared as a result of an introduced fungal disease. Dutch elm disease is similarly devastating American elms.
See also: Boreal Coniferous Forest, Other Forests, Central Grasslands, Scrub, Tundra, Coastal Vegetation
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