The summit of Camel's Hump is home to 10 acres (4 ha) of alpine tundra vegetation.
Common plants found in this area include: Bigelow's sedge (Carex bigelowii), alpine bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), mountain sandwort (Minuartia groenlandica), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), and Labrador tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum).
A direct result of glacial formation, these alpine species were once widespread but as the lower elevations warmed, only the very peak of Camel's Hump remained hospitable to the fragile plants.

There are 18 species of plants at or near the summit of Camel's Hump that are thought to be rare or very rare.
Of these, five species are protected by the Vermont endangered and threatened species rule: Boott's rattlesnake-root (Nabalus boottii, generically known as white lettuce), bearberry willow (Salix uva-ursi), lesser wintergreen (Pyrola minor), alpine sweetgrass (Anthoxanthum monticola), and squashberry (Viburnum edule).
The Green Mountain Club's Summit Caretaker program actively promotes Leave No Trace principles and helps to protect the alpine tundra natural community on the summit of Camel's Hump.

Despite extensive logging during the late 1800s and a great fire in 1903, Camel's Hump continues to support a significant population of red spruce (Picea rubens).
Starting in the 1960s, Hub Vogelmann and his graduate students from the University of Vermont observed an extensive decline in the red spruce population on the west slope of Camel's Hump.
Vogelmann's 1982 landmark paper “Catastrophe on Camel’s Hump” identified the cause of the decline to be acid rain.
Similarly the Forest Decline Project at the University of Vermont published a study in 1991 that again cited acid rain as the culprit.

These findings raised public awareness and eventually led to a revision of the Clean Air Act.
By 2017, with mounting evidence that the health of red spruce was on the rise, the scourge of acid rain in the northeast had largely come to an end.
The summit of Camel's Hump is home to 10 acres (4 ha) of alpine tundra vegetation. Common plants found in this area include: Bigelow's sedge (Carex bigelowii), alpine bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), mountain sandwort (Minuartia groenlandica), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), and Labrador tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum). A direct result of glacial formation, these alpine species were once widespread but as the lower elevations warmed, only the very peak of Camel's Hump remained hospitable to the fragile plants.
There are 18 species of plants at or near the summit of Camel's Hump that are thought to be rare or very rare. Of these, five species are protected by the Vermont endangered and threatened species rule: Boott's rattlesnake-root (Nabalus boottii, generically known as white lettuce), bearberry willow (Salix uva-ursi), lesser wintergreen (Pyrola minor), alpine sweetgrass (Anthoxanthum monticola), and squashberry (Viburnum edule). The Green Mountain Club's Summit Caretaker program actively promotes Leave No Trace principles and helps to protect the alpine tundra natural community on the summit of Camel's Hump.
Despite extensive logging during the late 1800s and a great fire in 1903, Camel's Hump continues to support a significant population of red spruce (Picea rubens). Starting in the 1960s, Hub Vogelmann and his graduate students from the University of Vermont observed an extensive decline in the red spruce population on the west slope of Camel's Hump. Vogelmann's 1982 landmark paper “Catastrophe on Camel’s Hump” identified the cause of the decline to be acid rain. Similarly the Forest Decline Project at the University of Vermont published a study in 1991 that again cited acid rain as the culprit.
These findings raised public awareness and eventually led to a revision of the Clean Air Act. By 2017, with mounting evidence that the health of red spruce was on the rise, the scourge of acid rain in the northeast had largely come to an end.
Camel's Hump