• Olympic: Three Parks in One

    Olympic

    National Park Washington

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  • Olympic Hot Springs Road Closed

    The Elwha Valley's Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed to public entry beyond the Altair Campground during removal of the Glines Canyon Dam. Olympic Hot Springs is not accessible from the Elwha.

  • Elwha River Closures

    Boating is prohibited on the Elwha River from Upper Lake Mills Trail downstream to the Highway 112 bridge, except for the stretch between Altair Campground and the Highway 101 bridge.

  • Changes to Visitor Services Due to Sequestration

    Due to mandatory, across the board budget cuts, some visitor services at Olympic National Park have changed. See the Plan Your Visit section for more information.

Plants

bright pink flowers emerge from a low mat of green leaves

The bright pink flowers of smooth Douglasia rise only an inch or two above a dense mat of green leaves, an adaptation for growing in rocks high in the mountains.

From massive conifers over 20 stories tall, to minute clumps of pink Douglasia prying a life out of rocky peaks, the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park boast an amazing diversity of plant life.

Over 1,450 types of vascular plants grow on the Peninsula, nearly the same number as the British Isles—an area 30 times larger. In addition, hundredsof species of non-vascular mosses, liverworts and hornworts also live here.

Why So Much Diversity?
The park and surrounding Olympic Peninsula have snowy peaks that plunge to mist-shrouded coast. Misty temperate rain forest on the west side, lies only 34 miles from dry oak savanna in the rain shadow northeast of the mountains. These quick changes in elevation and precipitation mean a lot of different habitats are crowded into the area.

Click below to learn more about some of the typical vegetation at different elevations.

Though they are not true plants, many types of fungi and lichens also grow in these habitats.

Some of Olympic's plant species are not native to this area, see Invasive Exotic Plants to learn more.

 
green understory in open rain forest with straight, mossy trunks
Moss and Oregon oxalis paint the understory green amid Sitka spruce in the rain forest.

Did You Know?

star-shaped purple flowers growing in a crack of a rock

That the Piper's bellflower is unique to the Olympic Mountains? Named after an early Olympic peninsula botanist, the Piper's bellflower grows in cracks and crevices of high elevation rock outcrops.