While many people think of the Blue Ridge Parkway as just a motor road, it is also a place of varied and significant natural resources. The Parkway follows the high crests of the central and southern Appalachians for 469 miles from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

Along this route an unsurpassed diversity of climate zones, vegetation zones, physiographic zones, and geological features are traversed. Park resources include 600 streams (150 headwaters), 47 Natural Heritage Areas (areas set aside as national, regional, or state examples of exemplary natural communities), a variety of slopes and exposures, and possibly 100 different soil types. With an elevation range of 5,700 feet, the Parkway provides a home for both southern species at the lower elevations and northern species on the mountaintops. Seventy-five distinct plant communities have been documented, including 24 considered globally rare (seven of these considered globally imperiled).

Taking advantage of this diversity are 14 major vegetation types, about 1,600 vascular plant species (second highest number of vascular plants for any national park); 50 are threatened or endangered. Nearly 100 species of trees grow along the Parkway, about as many as are found in all of Europe. Added to that are estimates of almost 400 species of mosses and nearly 2,000 species of fungi.

Not to be outdone by the plants, many species of animals make their homes along the Parkway. Fifty-four different mammals, and more than 40 species of both salamanders and reptiles can be found on Parkway lands. One hundred fifty-nine species of birds are known to nest here with dozens of others passing through during fall and spring migrations.

As part of a National Park Service-wide effort, the Blue Ridge Parkway has established more than 250 inventory and monitoring plots. Researchers and Park staff will use these plots over the next several years to inventory plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. As the data is collected, the Parkway’s list of species will surely grow.