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Thinking Like a Forest: On Fire and Oak Woods

Thinking Like a Forest: On Fire and Oak Woods PERSPECTIVE Thomas B. Simpson know of a white oak tree that is probably more than 500 years old. I have no way of proving this, but it is growing on a dry hilltop and thus growing very slowly owing to the lack of water, and dwarfs a 300-year-old white oak I cored for its age many years ago. Each time I go to these woods, I stop by and ponder this great mushroom-shaped tree, 130 cm in diameter, only 14 m tall, and with a 23 m crown spread. To the north, downslope on the Marengo Moraine, grew bur oak savanna a few centuries ago, and beyond that open prairie stretched for kilometers to the north and west across the glacial outwash plain. The woods are filled with young trees and shrubs of other species today, which cut off sightlines to the north, but it is easy to imagine standing on this knoll and looking out across the prairie--pretty heady stuff. In its lifetime this oak has produced between one and two million acorns (Burns and Honkala 1990), yet within 40 m of the tree (squirrels rarely move acorns farther than this from the parent tree) grow only http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecological Restoration University of Wisconsin Press

Thinking Like a Forest: On Fire and Oak Woods

Ecological Restoration , Volume 28 (3) – Oct 2, 2010

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Publisher
University of Wisconsin Press
Copyright
Copyright © University of Wisconsin Press
ISSN
1543-4079
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PERSPECTIVE Thomas B. Simpson know of a white oak tree that is probably more than 500 years old. I have no way of proving this, but it is growing on a dry hilltop and thus growing very slowly owing to the lack of water, and dwarfs a 300-year-old white oak I cored for its age many years ago. Each time I go to these woods, I stop by and ponder this great mushroom-shaped tree, 130 cm in diameter, only 14 m tall, and with a 23 m crown spread. To the north, downslope on the Marengo Moraine, grew bur oak savanna a few centuries ago, and beyond that open prairie stretched for kilometers to the north and west across the glacial outwash plain. The woods are filled with young trees and shrubs of other species today, which cut off sightlines to the north, but it is easy to imagine standing on this knoll and looking out across the prairie--pretty heady stuff. In its lifetime this oak has produced between one and two million acorns (Burns and Honkala 1990), yet within 40 m of the tree (squirrels rarely move acorns farther than this from the parent tree) grow only

Journal

Ecological RestorationUniversity of Wisconsin Press

Published: Oct 2, 2010

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