[Magdalen] What are we reading?

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

Botanical Blathering -
 
 
As I mentioned before somewhere, I'm wading through a sort
of bible of botany, Curtis' "Vegetation of Wisconsin"  It is a  well
documented scientific tome, but Curtis has a very entertaining 
style.  
 
I'm especially interested in the botanical "tension zone".  It  turns
out that my hometown of Grantsburg, Wisconsin and my home for
twenty years in Eau Claire, Wisconsin were both smack on this
line, which separates Northern and Southern Floristic Zones.
 
It's really amazing what European human settlement has made in
the flora of this one Upper Midwestern state.  The protection from 
fire has turned "pine barrens" into closed pine forests, and ditto 
for the "oak barrens" (closed oak forests). 
 
I've personally observed that these closed oak and pine forests are
in transition to mixed hardwood/maple forests and extensive
Eastern White Pine forests respectively.  This is obvious by  "reading"
the understories.
 
It is interesting what one finds if one lives long enough.
 
The extensive grasslands in the States of Wisconsin
(and Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois - "the Prairie Wedge") only exist
now in protected remnants.  
 
The grasslands were maintained by periodic controlled burning by
the American Indians.  Grasslands and pine/oak barrens are  better
for wildlife.
 
UW-Madison Arboretum has several such protected remnants.
 
 
David Strang - Looking out, worriedly, at the heavy coating of ice on  the
trees, especially the conifers here in  Pennsylvania.