Q 01/05

Congaree National Park is in which US state?

A) South Carolina

B) North Carolina

C) Georgia

D) Louisiana

Answer · why

A) South Carolina

South Carolina's only national park lies in the Midlands, where river floods regularly cover the forest floor and leave the fresh, rich soil that grow...

Q 02/05

What does the park preserve that exists nowhere else in the United States on the same scale?

A) The largest freshwater marsh

B) The largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest

C) The oldest longleaf pine savanna

D) The largest cypress plantation

Answer · why

B) The largest tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest

Logging and farming left only scattered remnants of a forest type that once blanketed the Southeast.

Q 03/05

In which season do floods most often sweep through Congaree's forest?

A) Winter

B) Spring

C) Summer

D) Autumn

Answer · why

A) Winter

Winter, although summer is the rainiest season here: the floods come from rain falling far upstream, across a watershed about the size of Maryland, so...

Q 04/05

Before becoming a national park in 2003, Congaree was a national what?

A) Monument

B) Preserve

C) Forest

D) Wildlife refuge

Answer · why

A) Monument

Monument status came in 1976, on about 15,000 acres; the 2003 law that made it a national park also dropped the word 'Swamp' from its name and let it ...

Q 05/05

Which 1989 hurricane toppled many of Congaree's champion trees and tore open gaps in the canopy?

A) Hurricane Andrew

B) Hurricane Hugo

C) Hurricane Hazel

D) Hurricane Floyd

Answer · why

B) Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo destroyed many of the 7 national and 14 state champion trees then on record, but seedlings and vines soon filled the sunlit gaps, which...