Conifer Country Blog - Page 25 of 33

July 9, 2014

High Pressure in the Siskiyou Wilderness

Original Publication DATE: 12/16/2011

The winds were blowing across southern California and the skies were clear in the north. This unseasonal weather, cultivated by a high pressure system sitting over most of the West coast, motivated a 24 hour whirlwind into the Siskiyou Wilderness. My goal was to search for an unusual population of Alaska yellow-cedar documented and collected by Overton and Butler in 1979. I had discredited this report for several years because it did not fit within the parameters of my expectations for the species’ regional ecological amplitude–reported at a mere 3115 feet. If true, this would be over 2000 feet lower than any other regional population. In the fall I made it to the HSU Herbarium to look at the specimen and, sure enough, it was properly identified by the duo. I had to find this unusual place. The high pressure was the excuse to escape the stress of the end of 2011, get into the mountains, and attempt to find another outlier in the Siskiyou Wilderness.

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July 7, 2014August 2, 2019

Miracle Mile

Russian Wilderness, California

Original Publication DATE: 8/31/2011

In the late 1960’s, after arriving at Humboldt State University as a new professor, John O. Sawyer received a letter in the mail from G. Ledyard Stebbins. Stebbins, widely regarded as one of America’s leading evolutionary biologists but also a lover of rare plants, suggested to John that he needed to visit a remote place in the Klamath Mountains known as Blake’s Fork. Here, he said, John might help verify a report for one of California’s rarest conifers–the Engelmann spruce. Stebbins hoped John could record his findings in a new database called the Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California organized by the California Native Plant Society. With conifers calling, John and his friend and co-worker Dale Thornburgh went on a journey that would change our understanding of conifer distributions, plant associations, and wilderness in California.

The heart of the Russian Wilderness and the Miracle Mile, with Russian Peak to the far left. This spiney ridge separates Sugar Creek (left) from Duck Creek (right).

July 6, 2014

Larix Lyallii | Derivations on a survival regime

Original Publication DATE: 8/10/2011

Conifers possess highly derived adaptations that allow them to flourish on continental land masses north and south of the 45th parallel—to the arctic tree line. They also grow in similar regions with decreasing latitude, like the various cordilleras of western North America. Though they comprise less than 1% of all plant species (~630), they define 30% of the forests on Earth. In order to survive in colder climates conifers must be able to handle temperature and moisture extremes. As a cat preens its fur, most conifers care for their needles. These waxy progeny are coddled when energy is diverted from other tree functions to maintain needles—often for many years. This heavy investment must allow needles to endure both high and low temperatures while at the same time regulating water loss during the warmer months. Also, because most conifers are evergreen, they are not inhibited by late spring or even summer frosts which might otherwise kill the leaves of a less cold-adapted species. Angiosperms–many of which are deciduous–generally inhabit lower elevations and warmer regions where they spend less time and energy in leaf production and maintenance and can therefore allocate resources to grow faster and pioneer oft-disturbed landscapes more rapidly. It it these two generalized survival regimes that had me confused on a recent backpack into the Pasayten Wilderness where there is a conifer that has blazed a unique path for survival on the edge of the Washington State alpine tundra.

The alpine tundra of the Pasayten Wilderness is characterized by small hummocks decorated with diminutive heaths and grasses with the much taller conifers surviving on only the fringes of this landscape.

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July 6, 2014

Mount Saint Helens | Goat Marsh RNA

Original Publication DATE: 7/23/2011

As Allison and I began to map our route through the Cascades for our summer vacation I proposed that we visit Mount Saint Helens. Allison quickly agreed but jokingly asked what conifers were there that I wanted to see–I relented that I wanted to familiarize myself with noble fir (Abies procera) outside of California and this was a place recommended by Chris Earle on his epic website. What we found in the Goat Marsh Research Natural Area was a juxtaposed landscape shaped by geological forces. We ambled through some of the most depauperate and some of the most productive forests we had ever seen. The resulting plants fostered in certain locations were there based solely on the substrate. The forests on the flows of ash, mud, and rock placed here by Mount Saint Helens allowed only the heartiest plants to survive. Other forests, hidden around the edge of protective mountains and out of reach from the mud and rock flows, grew on soils which had remained undisturbed and were thus less porous with higher nutrient contents–ultimately yielding some of the grandest forests on Earth.

The Goat Marsh Research Natural Area was identified for its mountain wetland communities, xeric lodgepole pine forests, and noble fir forests associated with an active Cascade volcano.

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July 6, 2014June 26, 2019

Ecological Amplitude: A story of climax

Original Publication DATE: 7/15/2011

Box Camp Mountain | Marble Mountain Wilderness

Ecological amplitude is the range of habitats, often dependent on and defined by elevation, within which a certain species has the ability to survive. In the Klamath Mountains there are two species of pines that define the highest elevations–growing at or near the summits of peaks from ~7500′ to 9000′ (The Klamath Mountains get no higher). Foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) and whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) inhabit our sky islands where they are the crowning jewels of this coniferous wonderland.

Jeffrey Kane ponders the approach to Box Camp Mountain from the Pacific Crest Trail.

Box Camp Mountain is interesting for several reasons. The first is that its summit is only 7,267′ yet both species of said pines live in this fringe habitat. This is generally on south-facing slopes where lack of competition from firs and hemlocks (which thrive on north-facing slopes) is minimal. When approaching the summit I began to doubt the reports of these pines being here; but in the last few hundred feet they began to appear. Throughout Holocene warming, these two species (and others) have slowly been retreating up regional mountains. Now, after thousands of years, they have reached their ecological climax on Box Camp–there is no more up on which to grow. This mountain holds the most formidably presumptive story I have attempted to read in a high elevation Klamath landscape–and what I read does not appears to have a happy ending.