Vegetation in the wilderness is primarily upland oak with yellow poplar, red oak, and hickory with at least three tracts of old growth forest. There are numerous sandstone outcroppings along the crest of the mountain and a number of high mountain bogs on Pine Swamp Ridge.
Peters Mountain Mallow, one of the rarest plants in the United States, is unique to the mountain. It is protected in a 398-acre preserve purchased by the Nature Conservancy of Virginia that is located just outside of the wilderness area. Peters Mountain mallow was discovered in 1927 by botanists who found 50 specimens. The plant was placed on the endangered species list in 1986 when a survey crew found only four specimens. In order to sprout, dormant seeds require fire to crack open and let water in. Cores from nearby trees showed that no fires had burned in the area for two decades. After a small blaze was lit in 1992 a few mallows sprouted. and later 500 seedlings were found. In 1849 John James Audubon and John Bachman found a
fisher on Peters Mountain, just south of Peterstown, West Virginia. The fisher is a secretive, dark-colored mammal that once ranged as far south as the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The fisher is no longer found in this area, but it has been introduced in parts of West Virginia and could return to the wild habitat provided by the Peters Mountain Wilderness. Stony Creek contains the colorful
candy darter, an imperiled fish found in only a few tributaries of the New River. ==Topography==