> Conservation biologists are taking a closer look at the natural riches of the Southeastern United States, and they describe it as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, in many ways on par with tropical forests

I often hear that the southeastern U.S. has some of the highest biodiversity of anywhere on earth, but as someone who grew up there, I'm not sure that it's really that apparent, at least visually. The vegetation all the way from Atlanta up to Maine tends to look like this (https://static.rootsrated.com/image/upload/s--nsRlDT5Y--/t_r...). If you dropped me in the woods in any state along the east coast, I wouldn't be able to identify which state I was in. Perhaps there is diversity in the number of species, but the trees and plants themselves don't look that different from each other. I moved to the west coast two years ago, and at least in appearances, it seems like there is more biodiversity (https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Od2CTO9JsJw/Wq7QDGEtQ6I/AAAAAAAAD...). Does anyone know what might explain the discrepancy? Just north of SF, there are redwood trees and cypress trees, which look strikingly different from each other.

Also, for those of you that grew up on the west coast, I'm curious what was your subjective impression of the vegetation in the southeast the first time you visited?