Within a few minutes we entered something I never thought I would see in my life: a healthy grove of eastern hemlock trees. Their dark, glossy boughs cast a deep shade over native ferns, mosses, and orchids - a far cry from the dead and dying hemlocks we are accustomed to seeing throughout the rest of Appalachia. This was a truly sacred place - a natural repository of the genetics that could save this entire species from extinction.
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