What if you were to make it a point of traveling (if you don’t already live nearby) to that region and begin looking for whatever it is that isn’t supposed to be there and locate one. Is that “the last whatever”?
Other threads where the same (or similar) issue(s) got some discussion include:
That part is easy to relate to. What’s odd to me is best shown in this map in the area near Memphis and downriver. It’s easy to relate to these trees not doing well in coastal regions. That’s pine country and my Dad used to try to explain that pines and cedars required different soil types. He even went so far as to say they couldn’t grow in the same areas. My brother and I showed him places between Birmingham and Nashville where one cedar was surrounded by pines and vice versa.
The gray areas in this map may have some piddling number of cedars growing there, so there must be a threshold amount before deciding that “none grow here” for the sake of coloring the map. I just wonder to what degree that map coloring is arbirtrary and to what degree backed up by in-the-field study. And that would apply to ranges of wild animals, birds, wildflowers and even minerals.
Language distributions ar even weirder. And religions.
It will be somewhat accurate, especially for trees. Both loggers and the BLM have a vested interest in knowing what trees are where, and when it’s OK for loggers to go into areas to harvest. There are periodic surveys of areas done, usually by seasonal grunts to go out and count trees.
