PINE TREES OF PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania is home to a wide variety of of evergreen tree species. Some of which include:
e_hemlock_cones_full http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/ Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)
The Eastern Hemlock is often used for construction timber. The Eastern Hemlock is the offical state tree of Pennsylvania and is often found in cool moist habitats. This evergreen produces cones 3/4" long that are egg-shaped and hanging singly from the tips of twigs. Under each small section of the pine cone are 2 small, winged seeds (Cook Forest, 2013).
Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris)
The Scots Pine, or also commonly referred to as Scotch Pine, is able to be grown and propagated in various soil and moisture conditions but does not tolerated shaded areas well. This evergreen tree is often planted and propagated for reforestation and horticultural uses. Cones from the Scots Pine are commonly 1½" - 2½" long and are found in solitary conditions or in pairs. They are usually grayish or reddish in color (Cook Forest, 2013).
American Larch (Larix laricina)
The American Larch is one of the most valuable timber trees found in Pennsylvania and is often found growing in moist or dry woodland conditions. American Larch evergreens are often planted as an ornamental plant in large open areas. Many of Pennsylvania's small wildlife, such as birds, squirrels, and mice, feed on the seeds and soft needles of the American Larch. Cones on the American Larch range about 5"-8" long. Each section of the pine cone usually produces 2 winged seeds, a common trait among many Pennsylvania pines (Cooks Forest, 2013).
Each of these Pennsylvania evergreen species provides a variety of resources unique to their own species. Whether it be producing timbe...
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...ough genetic variability is generally a good quality, sometimes plant characteristics that are considered favorable by commercial propagators can be lost through genetic mutation during sexual reproduction of seed propagation. Also, sexual propagation through seeds is not always feasible for commercial propagators because of the length of time from germination until you have a fully developed plant (Horticulture, 2014).
Sources:
Horticulture. (2014) In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/272484/horticulture
Cook Forest. (2013). Guide to the Common Trees of Pennsylvania. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from Cook Forest Online: http://www.cookforest.com/articles/trees/index.cfm
Tolar, T. (2013). How to Start Evergrees From Seeds. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from eHow: http://www.ehow.com/how_5689263_start-evergreens-seeds.html
These are very difficult questions for me personally to answer because I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I have seen the beauty of the old growth forests first-hand.
Lauffer, H. B., Williams, P., & Lauffer, D. (2012). Wisconsin Fast Plants® Program. Retrieved February 26, 2014, from http://www.fastplants.org
Irving and Hawthorne both explore the role the forest has on their Puritan communities and main characters. Irving’s story focuses the forest as a place where the devil is while cutting and burning trees. Irving’s depiction of the forest is very dark, and the forest itself is more a swamp than a traditional, lush forest. Irving describes it as, “thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet tall, which made it dark at noon-day…(Irving, 178).” He also uses adjectives like “stagnant”, “smothering”, “rotting”, and “treacherous” to describe his story’s forest.
[1] “Mixedwood Plains.” Canadian Ecozones. Toronto: n.p., n.d. N. pag. TDSB Online Library School Sites. Web. 13 Dec. 2013. .
The plots, blackberry rambles, pine barrens, and spacious groves of great eastern forest was an ecological kaleidoscope of garden chestnut, hickory, and oak…Early European explorers marveled at the trees that were spaced so that the forest “could be penetrated even by a large army”… English squatters encountered forested
Uncolonized North America was once inhabited by many organisms that have now become extinct. The extinction of these organisms can be blamed on the over harvesting of valuable resources or the introduction of foreign diseases from importation. One of these extinct organisms was the American chestnut. The American chestnut once inhabited the Eastern portion of North America from Maine to Florida. The great tree was once a dominant species that inhabited the Appalachian Mountains. The tree provided a staple diet to pre-colonized North American inhabitants and the immigrants of Europe. The great tree which dominated the overstory deciduous forest would soon meet its demise from a foreign invader by the mid- twentieth century.
The plants growing among Montana’s peaks and valleys range from tall evergreen trees to grasses. The mountainous areas are covered with forests. However, at each level, from the mountaintops to the valleys, there are different, distinct collections of plant life. The mountainsides are largely covered with towering spruce, pine, cedar, and Douglas fir trees (Av2
Grelen, Harold E. May Burns Stimulate Growth of Longleaf Pine Seedlings. New Orleans: Southern Forest Experiment Station, 1978.
Redwoods were named for the color of their bark and heartwood. These trees have a high resistance to fungus and diseases due to the high tanin content in the wood. The dense, fibrous bark has an even higher content, and acts as an insulator from periodic fires which have plagued the countryside for centuries. Though these trees are immense, they have delicate foliage. The needles are narrow and sharp-pointed, and combine to form feathery sprays. The cones are an inch long and typically contain fourteen to twenty-four seeds. The older trees offspring sprout form their parents' roots in order to take advantage of the established root system.
Southern yellow pine has been popular for a long time and remains the preferred choice for building professionals. One can use southern yellow pine for building projects that are big and small. This wood is known for our nation’s most used and sustainably harvested wood resource. Southern yellow pine is a reliable product for any task such as building a deck or framing a house. It is one of the most useful kinds of wood considering it is a preferred choice from professional builders to do-it-yourselfers. This wood has many amazing benefits and is one of the most popular choices for outdoor decking. Southern yellow pine is the ideal choice of wood due to its strength & durability, broad availability, and cost efficient pricing.
We started at an elevation of about 6,400 feet. At his location there were many Pinion Pines, Junipers, rabbit brush, sagebrush, Indian rice grass, and cheat grass. At this location there were two different layouts. There were areas with more trees making a forest and there was a large area that had a few trees scattered through out. There were efforts to increase land for deer to graze so the trees were chain sawed down. Sadly their efforts failed because cheat grass has taken over all the open area. Cheat grass is a grass that grows very rapidly and uses all the nutrients and water from the land before any other grass or plant can grow. They removed many pinion pines and junipers, which grow very slowly and up to and over 100 years old. The area that was not removed had less cheat grass, more rocks with moss on them, and more rabbet brush.
Once the gray wolf population had declined in the National Park, many ecological impacts were observed. Without a sustainable wolf population in the park, the elk population began to take over and increase in size. Due to this increase in elk, many of the deciduous woody species began to become overgrazed. With the e...
The climate of the Pennsylvanian period is very different from that of ours today. The climate can best be described as being similar to a rainforest. “The Pennsylvanian was the time of the great ‘Coal Swamp Forests’ which dominated the equatorial regions of the planet.” (Kazlev) There were extensive swampy regions that stretched across countries. Much of the world was underwater and is what allowed some of the species that emerged to be so successful. Even though ...
Rhamnus cathartica L., otherwise known as common buckthorn, is a small shrub native to Europe and Asia that was introduced to North America in the 1800’s (Mascaro and Schnitzer 2007). R. cathartica is a deciduous, branched shrub that grows to heights of two to eight meters. Each shrub produces small, black berries containing seeds and bears up to 2000 fruit per tree (Archibold et al. 1997). The seeds are dispersed by fauna, mainly birds, which largely contributes to its accelerated invasion of fields, roadsides, and residential areas across North America (Archibold et al. 1997). With the invasion of R. cathartica comes the displacement of native species, the changes in the structure and function of ecosystems, and the loss of biodiversity
Williams, R.J. and Costin, A.B. (1994). Alpine and subalpine vegetation. In Australian Vegetation, 2nd ed. Ed. R.H. Groves, pp. 467-500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.