Petite-Rivière-Godbout Old Forest

The Petite-Rivière-Godbout Old Forest is made up of a few stands dominated by northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis), which is rare in the Côte-Nord. Usually cedars are found in areas of deciduous and mixed forest. Dry cedar groves growing on rock are even rarer. Other trees are balsam fir (Abies balsamea), black spruce (Picea mariana) and white birch (Betula papyrifera). The forest has never been developed or disturbed by human activities, and for a long time has not suffered from severe natural disturbances such as fire, high winds or insect infestations.^[2]

The older cedar trees are 300 to 400 years old.^[2] The trunks of the dominant trees have an average diameter of 50 centimetres (20 in) and height of 17 metres (56 ft), while the mature fir stands surrounding the forest are no more than 12 metres (39 ft) high. The regeneration stratum of the forest contains a good proportion of cedars, balsam fir and white birch, so the cedars seem well established.^[2] Due to their strength and longevity the cedars should continue to dominate the upper strata of the forest.^[3]

Shrubs include mountain maple (Acer spicatum) and Canada yew (Taxus canadensis). In some places the yews are very abundant. The herbaceous layer includes mountain woodsorrel (Oxalis montana), shining firmoss (Huperzia lucidula), Canadian bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), threeleaf goldthread (Coptis trifolia), starflower (Trientalis borealis), spinulose woodfern (Dryopteris carthusiana) and blue-bead lily (Clintonia borealis). Groundcover includes several common species of mosses, usually sparse.^[3]