embracing diverse ecosystems
a geographic nature journal
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The Almost, But Not Quite, Rainforest of Florida’s First Coast
To see moss or lichen on a tree is to be in a rainforest, right? This was the assumption I told myself as a kid growing up on a dry short grass prairie. My experience with forests, particularly rainy ones, was obviously very limited. For years and years afterwards I vacationed with family in Florida,…
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Discovering Spring Ephemerals in Wilfred J. Turenne Wildlife Habitat
Growing up in the dry mountain west, I never learned to appreciate the coming of spring as I now do living in New England. I spent my teenage years living in a Ponderosa Pine forest, with few deciduous trees and a simple, shortgrass prairie understory. While I recall the occasional colorful flower pops of the…
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A Surprise Stand of Pitch Pine in Middlesex Fells Reservation
Around the Boston Metro and extending into many areas of New England, the most dominant, and well known, pine tree is the White Pine. In fact, the White Pine is the state tree of Maine, is featured on top of the Massachusetts State House in the form of a pine cone statue, and was one…
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The Hemlock Ring of Upstate New York
The Adirondacks are a small, well-known mountain range in the northernmost region of New York State. The range is prized for its remoteness as well as for its opportunities for recreational tourism in an otherwise very densely populated section of the country. Like many northern mountains, the mountains here have plenty of coniferous trees that…
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The Mountain of Oaks, Mt. Wachusett
A common stereotype that surrounds the concept of a “mountain” involves either a summit populated with coniferous (evergreen) trees, or a treeless summit surrounded by coniferous forests below the treeline. Indeed this assumption holds mostly true for many mountains in New England, including the famous Mt. Washington, Mt. Cardigan, Mt. Monadnock, and Pack Monadnock. A…
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The Desert at the Base of the Spring Mountains, Red Rock Canyon
The Spring Mountains are a small mountain range that sit directly in the eastern rain shadow of California’s Sierra Nevadas. This mountainous terrain that descends into dry desert creates a unique transitional area between higher alpine environments and arid hills. The nature of the transition represents an analogue to the ecosystem convergence we discovered at…
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A Hemlock Oasis in the Boston Metro
In my previous life as a city dweller, I would never have known to search for hemlock trees in Massachusetts. I moved from the mountain west directly into an area with a highly dense population and little native forest cover. With the pandemic, there seems to have been a renewed interest in the outdoors and…
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A Fragmented Landscape in Western Washington
On the East Coast, Midwest, and Mountain West, we often hear stories of the pristine old growth temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, a magical, untouched realm only accessible via the remote lens of social media. These lands of ancient giants steeped in moss and lichen are presented in stark contrast to both the barren…
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Discovering Forest Mosaics in Upstate New York
Having spent most of the past several years in eastern Massachusetts, I have not had much opportunity to really dive into the minute differences between the forest ecosystems of the eastern United States. I had heard of a few unique locations that differed from the oak and pine-dominated lowlands of my home region, such as…