Crowning the highest peaks with spruce and fir and carpeting the
mountainsides with a wealth of deciduous trees is an unbroken
forest cover, which cannot be matched in eastern America. In all of
Europe there are not as many species of native trees as are to be
found in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A number of these,
such as Canada hemlock, silverbell, red spruce, yellow buckeye, and
mountain-ash grow to record size, while others become giants of their
kind. Approximately 40 percent of the more than half-million acres
which comprise the park are in the original forested condition. A
total of 130 native tree species are known to grow in this area.