Hello, hikers.
Dennis asked that I add some flower pictures to our trail chronicle for Thursday. These 9 species (a couple of them needing more careful identification) are a sampling of the late spring richness that we enjoyed--life under the vast expanse of dead spruce trees.
The roots of these flowers will help hold the soil when we get rain. The diversity of species will respond to the new sunlight allowed onto the forest floor. In our lifetimes, we will not see the big trees in these places again, except as logs on the forest floor. But we will see more flowers than normal, as the old spruce rot away and the young spruce and fir survive, grow, and reproduce (slowly).
Prediction and opinion based on my scientific training:
The forester in me says we will also see more fires, some of them raging. The tens of thousands of acres of dead spruce are ready to ignite at the least carelessness or a lightning strike. We will also see more soil erosion--even landslides. We will experience uncomfortably greater variation in the flow of our creeks and rivers.
Some have insisted that carefully managed logging is "wrong"-- removing mature trees in relatively small parcels. Compare that to the lessons that tiny bark beetles have given us in the last 5 years. So now we live with our preferences.
Each of these flowers represents another species of the Creation. Our species (Homo sapiens) enjoys and respects these other species. We try to get to know them better on our hikes. We hope we at least get to know their names better.
Enjoy the long, long cycles of our beautiful world. --Doug Knudson
Leafy cinquefoil ?
Mountain Parsley
Subalpine Jacob's Latter
Mountain candy-tuft
Subalpine buttercup
Globeflower
Parry primrose
Subalpine buttercup
Snowball saxifrage
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