The Biota of Willows - the wet habitat

A variety of wetland habitats run north to south through the middle of the ten acres that define the geographical limits of the Willow's Biota project. The contiguous open water feature I generally refer to as ponds. The open meadow is referred to as the swale. I refer to the wooded wetlands as the swamp.

The swamp is predominantly Cascara, Pacific Crabapple, Sitka and Pacific Willow; those tree species most tolerant of standing water. On higher ground, that only occasionally floods, grows Western Hemlock and Red Alder. Higher still is Grand fir. Proceeding up-slope from the wet areas is Western Red Cedar, Mountain Ash and Douglas Fir.

I have worked in the wetlands quite a bit over the course of my 28 year tenure at Willows. I have removed large swaths of wild Rose, Hardhack and Salmonberry, to open up ponds to waterfowl. I have deepened some areas by removing two to three feet of peat accumulation. In the course of excavation, I have learned quite a bit of the recent geologic history of this land: past logging most recently, catastrophic fire maybe in the last couple hundred years, and the deposit of bog iron, via precipitation, that may have taken many centuries to form. Deeper, below the peat, layers of silt and sand tell stories of ancient glacial sediment sorting.

I have also pushed openings into the wooded area of the swamp, and created channels through the swamp. Trees felled by man, and more historically by natural processes, lay often intact and "pickled" by the high acid environment of the tannin rich peat. Cedars mostly, of impressive girth and former stature, are still sound and aromatically resinous when chopped or cut into.

Some years ago I uncovered the sawn off top of what must have been an impressive old growth fir. I yarded a twelve foot section out of the peat and had it sawn into slabs I later milled into fine lumber. Several of these board ended up in cabinetry in my home. I suspect the whole tree may have been connected to a prodigious stump some 120 feet from where the top lay. Counting tree rings from the lumber I got, and extrapolating the age from the girth of the now rotting stump, this tree may have been over a millennium in age.

In subsequent posts, I shall share my observations and propose theories as to how various tree species survive and prosper in this seasonally transitioning wet environment.

Publicado el septiembre 10, 2017 02:22 MAÑANA por kurtsteinbach