#tree species

[er-cryptid]

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[rebeccathenaturalist]

That's so cool! And they found a few of them, and they're now growing seedlings in greenhouses for eventual replanting!

Quercus tardifolia is a relic species leftover from when the climate was much cooler and wetter in the past, and can only really live in a few high-elevation spots in Texas. It's definitely still at risk of extinction due to increasing heat and drought caused by climate change, but the discovery means this species still has a chance.

[intlforestday]

150 ways you can celebrate trees and nature.

The Arbor Day Foundation have some ideas to help you get the celebration started. Here’s a list of 150 ways you can celebrate trees and nature on the International Day of Forests 2023 or other forest days.

United States: 150 ideas to celebrate trees

[headspace-hotel]

btw new big tree just dropped (mom sent to me on facebook)

Ohio has been holding out on us huh

[vuelode-irbis]

StarClan's tool

ID: a digital drawing that features Leafpool (Warrior Cats). She's seen from the above, her face is covered in leaves put in by StarClan cats' paws. Her eyes aren't visible, but her muzzle and ears are. At her paws, there are blue, starry pawprints of StarClan paws, simbolizing a path already traced by these cats. The path ends in a holly leaf, a sycamore maple leaf, already turned yellow, and a jay's feather, simbolising the kits she was bound to give birth to. End ID.

[theoppositeofprofound]

How much more deranged would Middle-Earth be if Tolkien was given access to modern scholarship re:the ageless depth of trees?

It’s true that by the end of the Third Age, no trees in Eregion remember the elves that walked there. But there’s an ancient yew in Rivendell that Gil-Galad planted, a clone of one of the old trees of Lindon, that’s still thriving when Elrond leaves his home. It’s seen elven kings and laughing lords and harried messengers. Though trees don’t care about such things, it’s nice to be seen.

There’s a golden aspen grove between Lothlorien and Fangorn. The elves say Nimrodel planted it before her name was Nimrodel, before continents sank, when the forests were home only to a handful who loved them more than paradise.

By the shores of the Mirrormere is another yew. In a little known tradition, kept by one dwarf alone, every Durin plants a few of its seeds, and one of those trees always lives long enough to see his next self.

There’s a cypress in the port of Umbar. Locals say the lord in Mordor planted it the first time he visited (he was still in the habit of planting trees back then). It lived past several of his deaths but faltered, finally, beneath the ashes of his last, worst destruction—more than four thousand years later.

On a tiny island in the sea is a little cluster of spruce trees—some scrap of drowned Beleriand too holy, for one reason or another, to falter. It’s the same tree—when one falters a new coppice comes to take its place, growing out of the same root system. There’s a betting pool among the deep sea fishers of the Falathrin about whose grave lies beneath.

Much is made of the White Tree of Gondor, but on the hillsides in Ithilien, dangerously close to Minas Ithil, are gnarled olive trees that witnessed the Last Alliance. Faramir is inordinately fond of them without knowing the reason why.

Ulmo keeps a garden of sea sponges. The oldest didn’t just see Númenor founded and drowned, it saw the bones of the very first second-comers. (Ossë collects many things.) It’s been… 10,000 years? 12,000? Sponges don’t keep time, they just remember.

Ulmo also keeps a bed of sea grass older than the destruction of the Lamps, but he doesn’t mention that to other people; it’s just for him.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

One's got a cute little turned up nose. Aren't they sassy?

[chameleocoonj]

more dinovember friends :)

[stickyfrogs]

We met some more Beautiful Friends yesterday at Melbourne Zoo! Very Displeased Peanut with Manners was out again to say hi! Southern Barred Frog was showing off Excellent STARING! A Stickyfrogs’ cousin was enjoying a Happy Nap, and Gorgeous Growling Grass Frog was sunbathing in her Stylish Bronze Onesie!

[godbirdart]

weird dogs

[foone]

I'm not saying I'm a big furry/therian, but I just saw an abbreviated org chart at my job which didn't include me, it instead just drew my boss as being in charge of "many humans", so it didn't need to list all of us individually.

And I was offended. Human? Me? How dare you.

I have never been human a day in my life. I was found in a pile of leaves in the woods and I have spent the decades since then trying to get weirder.

[er-cryptid]

Yucca elata verdiensis

-- small capsule fruits

-- 4 to 4.5 cm long fruits

-- short leaves

-- only found in Arizona

.

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[rebeccathenaturalist]

This ties into one of the big conundrums of restoration ecology. When trying to decide what plants to add to a restoration site, should we add those that are there now, even if some of those species are increasingly stressed by the effects of climate change? Or do we start importing native species in adjacent ecoregions that are more tolerant of heat?

Animals can migrate relatively quickly, but plants take longer to expand their range, and the animals that they have mutual relationships with may be moving to cooler areas faster than the plants can follow. Whether the animals will be able to survive in their new range without their plant partners is another question, and that is an argument in favor of trying to help the plants keep up with them. We're not just having to think about what effects climate change will have next summer, but also predict what it's going to look like here in fifty years, a hundred, or beyond. It's an especially important question in regards to slow-growing trees which may not reproduce until they are several years old, and which can take decades to really be a significant support of their local ecosystem.

For example, here in the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades, western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is experiencing increased die-off due to longer, hotter summer droughts. Do we continue to plant western red cedar, in the hopes that some of them may display greater tolerance to drought and heat? Or do we instead plant Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), which is found in red cedar's southern range, and which may be more drought-tolerant, even though it's not found this far north yet?

Planting something from an adjacent ecoregion isn't the same as grabbing a plant from halfway around the world and establishing it as an invasive species. But there is the question as to whether the established native would have been able to survive if we hadn't introduced a competing "neighbor" species. Would the Port Orford cedars and western red cedars be able to coexist as they do in northern California and southern Oregon, or would the introduced Port Orfords be enough to push the already stressed red cedars over the edge to extirpation?

There's no simple answer. But I am glad to see the government at least allowing some leeway for those ecologists who are desperately trying any tactic they can to save rare species from extinction.

[intlforestday]

Why are forests important?

Did you know?

Forests are home to about 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, with more that 60,000 tree species.

Around 1.6 billion people depend directly on forests for food, shelter, energy, medicines and income.

The world is losing 10 million hectares of forest each year - about the size of Iceland

[headspace-hotel]

as promised, the transplanting tutorial

most sources make transplanting sound incredibly difficult, but transplanting young seedlings from areas with sparse dirt, like a driveway or roadside, is actually incredibly easy and can get you some great stuff. Once I worked out the method, i've had a very high survival rate

it took me like a month of trial and error to figure this out so you don't have to.

Feel free to repost, no need for credit