ENGLISH ARTICLES

Rain Forest

Rain forest is a forest that grows where the rainfall is heavy and spread fairly evenly through the year. Rain forests grow in both the Tropics and in temperate latitudes. Tropical rain forest was first defined in 1898 by the German botanist and ecologist Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1856–1901), who also coined the term (in German, as tropische Regenwald). Schimper said the forest comprises evergreen trees that are at least 100 feet (30 m) tall, rich in thick-stemmed lianas (creepers), and with many woody and herbaceous (nonwoody) epiphytes growing on them. An epiphyte is a plant that grows on the surface of another plant, but that is not a parasite. This definition still stands.

The forest trees form a continuous canopy. There are also trees up to 100 feet (60 m) tall that stand high above the canopy. Temperate rain forest develops outside the Tropics, wherever the annual rainfall exceeds 60–120 inches (1,500–3,000 mm). It consists of broad-leaved evergreen trees, often with coniferous species, and with abundant climbers and epiphytes. This type of forest is found in coastal areas of the southeastern United States, northwestern North America, southern Chile, parts of Australia and New Zealand, and in southern China and Japan.