Paleobotanist Jack A. Wolfe of the United States Geological Survey at Menlo Park, California, has found a number of tropical rain forest fossils along the eastern Gulf of Alaska. These include several kinds of palms, Burmese lacquer trees, mangroves and trees of the type that now produce nutmeg and Macassar oil.
Why take a chance with exotics, when native trees have proven their ability to survive? Several reasons prompt testing of foreign tree species. Human activities often create and maintain new, sometimes artificial habitats that native trees are not adapted to. Exotics may have strong wood, large fruits or straight boles that are lacking in the ...
The Klukwan giant belies the belief that trees tend to get smaller the farther north one goes. Both balsam poplar and cottonwood have value for fuel wood, pulp and lumber.
Stan Boutin has climbed more than 5,000 spruce trees in the last 30 years. He has often returned to the forest floor knowing if a ball of twigs and moss within the tree contained newborn red squirrel pups. Over the years, those squirrels have taught Boutin and his colleagues many things, including an apparent ability to predict the future.
In a drunken forest, trees--often pipe-cleaner black spruce--tilt in all directions like a group of rowdy revelers stumbling along the street. Unlike pendulous pub patrons, drunken forests aren't caused by beer, but by unique soil conditions found in the north. Melting permafrost is the most common cause of the drunken forest.
Burls weaken trees but do not kill them. The weakening effect, however, makes the trees vulnerable to other diseases which can kill them. Relatively little is known about burls, for several reasons: It takes a long time for a burl to grow--nearly as long as the tree on which it is found--so research is stretched out over a long period of time.
The Alaska champion black spruce tree stands on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The tree lives in a mixed forest next to large white spruce trees, mature birch and a few alders and willows. The tree leans uphill, and its trunk is 45 inches around. When I hugged it, I could barely clasp my hands together.
Somehow black spruce trees seem like the jackasses of the northern forests--sort of ungainly looking, ugly little beasts that somehow can survive under conditions prohibitive to the taller and more elegant birches and white spruce. But, like donkeys, black spruce have their likable and interesting qualities.
From the solution of liquid leaves, they determined that a sugary red pigment was indeed present in red and orange aspens, but not in yellow aspens. The scientists hinted that the red occurs on only some trees, meaning it is probably a genetic trait — a red aspen is sort of like a person with red hair.
When one of these trees finds itself on a better site, however, it shows a remarkable change of pace. Individual tamarack growing in white spruce stands may achieve a size comparable to white spruce 100 to 150 years old. The current record tamarack in Alaska stands near mile 311 of the Richardson Highway.
