[Magdalen] The wind has SHIFTED!.

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/11/2016 4:20:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
mjl at ix.netcom.com writes:

Granted,  containment is currently only at 55%, but still.   Phew!
Botanical blathering -
 
My hometown in NW Wisconsin is exactly on the botanical
"tension zone" where northern and southern floristic provinces
meet.  To the north of my town, there is very light, sandy soil
dumped by the Pleistocene Glacier, and south, heavier soil,
well suited to agriculture.
 
To the north, really to the edge of the Lake Superior Boreal Forest,
(90 mi.) there is a monotony of pine, mostly Jack Pine (P. banksiana)  and
Hill's Oak ( Quercus ellipsoidalis), and both species are very
susceptible to fire.  It seemed every year back in the day, the
schools would be dismissed to go help the fire fighters.  There  were
always fires, but not on the scale of the Western USA fires.   Despite
these species fire sensitivity, they need fire to regenerate.
 
Since the advent the past forty years, of good fire control of this
region, there is obviously a change in the direction of more climax
species that now thrive because of fire reduction.  It was  therefore
startled to travel through these Jack Pine barrens a year or so 
ago, and discover that there was an understory of Eastern White
Pine (P. strobus) and Red Pine (P. resinosa).  There is  essentially
zero reproduction of the original species (Jack Pine and Hill's Oak).
 
Another twenty years or so, there will be another forest type  completely
in that region.
 
 
 
David S.