Geography.

The Black Forest has been a well known location in Europe for many years. It lines the border of France, Switzerland, and the Neckar River. The forest is in the center of a continental divide. A continental divide, often undefined, is a line of elevated terrain which forms a border between two watersheds. On one side of The Black Forest lays the Atlantic watershed that drains into the Rhine, and to the other lays the Black Sea watershed that drains into the Danube.


Now that we know where we are headed, lets find our first stop and take a look at the dense concentration of pine trees that make up this forest. Because there are so many pine trees condensed in the forest, from afar they make the forest look very dark as shown below. (The mountains that stand beside the forest also cast shadows over the forest which makes it appear even darker at times.)
The pine tree is a coniferous tree and has four different types of leaves. The first three leaves are those of the younger pines trees; they are the Seed Leaves, Juvenile leaves, and Scale leaves.


The Needles are the adult leaves. In the Black Forest you will most likely see many Needles from the adult trees and possibly some of the younger leaves as well. The adult Needles are green, bundled in clusters of needles. The needles survive for 1.5-40 years, depending on their species. To the left is a young Juvenile leaf and to the right is an adult Needle leaf.