tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2309385158537254711.post6081582503454291130..comments2023-09-26T12:18:39.374+03:00Comments on Boreal Expat: Exotic Leaf LitterKent Tankersleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848650819768345044noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2309385158537254711.post-28580793130741805152012-10-22T02:52:27.585+03:002012-10-22T02:52:27.585+03:00There are so many oak species here in the USA that...There are so many oak species here in the USA that I despair of ever learning them all. My dad could walk into the forest and you could NOT "stump" him on any species (sorry). He could tell you the common names of every tree we encountered. He was never at a loss, and he was never wrong. (I tried to catch him a few times by waling around with a Field Guide to North American trees. He nailed them all.)<br /><br />The worst thing about my dad's vast knowledge of the flora that covered my native South? I didn't pay any attention to him. He'd spit out the name and how to ID the tree and it would go in one ear and out the other. I figured I'd have plenty of time for him to teach me (some other day when I was more interested in trees). Hit my 18th birthday and he was dead. So much for his mentoring me on the trees.<br /><br />Alas.<br /><br />I have yet to know the trees even fractionally as well as he.<br /><br />The King's Oak is quite the impressive tree! I am always amazed at how few "big" trees there are in Europe. You guys cut them all down!<br /><br />The Caledonian Pine forests of Scotland are perhaps doomed. They're all very old (400+ years) and there are no intermediate Caledonian pines between very young plantings and the ancient tracts. The vast herds of deer species eat up the trees faster than they can grow--and there are no wolves and lynx and bears to kill back the deer herds (and not enough human hunters). So Scotland has to fence off tracts to protect trees until they're big enough to not be eaten by hungry deer. As you can imagine, this is a difficult and painstaking process (that probably won't work).<br /><br />Europeans need to stop being afraid of wolves and bears and bring them back and allow them to roam (of course you'd also have to create true wilderness for that, too).<br /><br />Finland, of course, has such predators. You guys also have some real wilderness for them to live in.<br />James Robert Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com