Of course the “heavily wooded” aspect of North America applies especially to the east, where Europeans first colonized. When they started pushing west, they came to the Great Plains, and encountered a limitless sea of grassland stretching to the horizon in many places. Many of the early settlers built sod houses because they might have to travel for miles to find a tree. Further west, scrublands and desert.
The western forests are mostly conifer, which yields stuff like doug fir for construction, but there’s a distinct lack of hardwood.
Eucalyptus is all over CA because Australian miners during the gold rush noted the lack of usable timber trees in much of the area, thought that the climate was a lot like parts of Oz, and came up with the idea of transplanting Eucalyptus to create a timber and fuel tree industry. Yeah. We now have lots of what many people regard as a 200 foot tall weed and fire hazard.
There is a long story associated CA and eucalyptuses. They are used for timber in Australia. In CA, it didn’t work out. For instance, when they attempted to make railroad ties out of the wood, it warped severely. You find many differing opinions as to why not, including:
1 - They attempted to harvest them before they were mature enough.
2 - The CA climate made them grow too quickly, and they grew in a manner which didn’t make suitable timber.
3 - American sawmill operators didn’t know how to season them properly. Eucalyptus has a rather peculiar spiraling grain, and has to be handled differently.
Only slightly younger is the Saylesville Friends Meetinghousein Lincoln RI. I’ve been in the cellar to see the original rough hewn wood beams, over 300 years old, and the original bark remains in some spots.
