The Salome Wilderness of

Tonto National Forest The Tonto National Forest, encompassing , is the largest of the six national forests in Arizona and is the ninth largest national forest in the United States. The forest has diverse scenery, with elevations ranging from 1,400 feet (427 m) in ...

is a protected area in the rim country of the southwestern US. The Salome Wilderness lies within the

Sierra Ancha The Sierra Ancha ("broad range" in Spanish, in Western Apache: Dził Nteel - "Wide Flat Mountain") is a mountain range in Gila County, in central Arizona. It lies between Roosevelt Lake to the south, the Tonto Basin to the west, Cherry Creek to ...

mountain range in

Gila County, Arizona Gila County ( ) is in the central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 53,272. The county seat is Globe. Gila County comprises the Payson, Arizona Micropolitan Statistical Area. Gila County contains p ...

Ecology

Prominent

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

streams within this

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

are Workman Creek and

Salome Creek Salome Creek is a watercourse in the Salome Wilderness in central Arizona, United States. Natural history The oldest exposed rock forms in the watershed are graphic granite, which dates to 1400 million years before present. The watershed holds a d ...

. The region has a diverse flora and fauna. Within this part of the Sierra Ancha Range there are notable

disjunctive population A disjunctive population, in ecology, is a colony of plants or animals, whose geographical locus is severed from the continuous range of the bulk of the species distribution. Although a disjunctive population may sometimes occur on an island,A.W.D. ...

s of Coastal woodfern, ''

Dryopteris arguta ''Dryopteris arguta'', with the common name coastal woodfern, is a species of wood fern. It is native to the west coast and western interior mountain ranges of North America, from British Columbia, throughout California, and into Arizona. It gr ...

'';C. Michael Hogan. 2008 this fern is otherwise common in areas nearer the Pacific coast.

References

* Tom Dollar and Jerry Sieve. 1999. ''Guide to Arizona's Wilderness Areas'', Big Earth Publishing, , 304 pages * C. Michael Hogan. 2008
''Coastal Woodfern (Dryopteris arguta)'', GlobalTwitcher, ed. N. Stromberg
* {{Coord, 33, 50, 20, N, 111, 03, 59, W, source:GNIS, display=title Protected areas of Gila County, Arizona IUCN Category Ib Wilderness areas of Arizona Tonto National Forest