“Over the course of its more than ten-thousand-year life-span," she proclaimed, "Białowieża Forest has offered shelter not only to Europe's sole surviving megafauna and the royals who legislated its exclusive use, but also to boreal owls, dwarf marsh violets, black storks, gray wolves, snakes (as we have witnessed), the world's only population of Agrilus pseudocyaneus, around two hundred types of moss, two hundred eighty-three kinds of lichens, and over eighteen hundred fungal species, of which nine hundred forty-three are classified as being at risk. Of which two hundred can be found nowhere else in Poland. I am saying that there are two hundred different kinds of fungi here in Białowieża that are, everywhere else, probably already extinct.” ForestPolandFungiFlora And FaunaRare Species Book:The Extinction of Irena Rey Source: The Extinction of Irena Rey
“To our right there was a gentle burst of sedge grass completely surrounded by nettles, backed by a row of wild bergamot. Beech-trees hovered over every earthly thing in that direction, spiking into the regathering clouds. To our left were the spruces where the firecrests and the dunnocks and the three-toed woodpeckers lived.” TreesBirdsForestPolandFlora And Fauna Book:The Extinction of Irena Rey Source: The Extinction of Irena Rey