The Klukwan giant holds the national record for black cottonwood diameter. Its nearest rival, a tree near Salem, Oregon, does hold the national height record. 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.
Interior Alaskan forests have only six native tree species: white spruce, black spruce, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, larch (tamarack) and paper birch. Northern Canadian forests have all of those, plus jack pine, balsam fir and lodgepole pine. Since northern Canada and interior Alaska share the same grueling climate and extremes of daylength, why are the Canadian tree species absent from ...
A tree near one of our campsites had a crack at its base through which we could pass the folded saw. Yet the tree was still alive, with just one rope of cambium — the outer bark that transports water and nutrients — snaking up the trunk. A few of its blue-green feathery leaves flagged from the top of what otherwise looked like a snag.
The tree leans uphill, and its trunk is 45 inches around. When I hugged it, I could barely clasp my hands together. The largest black spruce in Alaska is a lucky tree, because its neighbors to the north are gone, removed in the mid-1990s during the installation of a power line.
A tree's age can be easily determined by counting its growth rings, as any Boy or Girl Scout knows. Annually, the tree adds new layers of wood which thicken during the growing season and thin during the winter. These annual growth rings are easily discernible (and countable) in cross-sections of the tree's trunk. In good growing years, when sunlight and rainfall are plentiful, the growth rings ...
Witches' broom on spruce trees is caused by a rust disease (a kind of fungus disease). The rust lives on the spruce tree throughout the year. Each spring, small yellow pustules appear on the new needles of the broom. A strong sweet odor, which is easily recognizable, usually accompanies the maturation of these pustules.
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.
American robins have returned to northern Alaska. A male is now perched above me in a balsam poplar tree on this bench of well-drained land upon which sits the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The robin sings his complex, familiar song just hours after his return from somewhere farther south.
The book, VANASUMA will be a record of the wild flowering trees in and around the National Park in Kannada, which will serve as a field guide as well – with high quality pictures and detailed descriptions of the trees. Tree walks and environment awareness programmes will be conducted especially for School and College students.
In the months from October 2024 to January 2025, significant efforts were undertaken to plan and gather essential data, laying the groundwork for the commencement of fieldwork under the Vanasuma Project. Key preparatory activities included the appointment of staff, procurement of reference materials, creation of a tree species checklist, and the design of transect lines for systematic data ...
