Long Leaf Pine   edniz
  Nov 07, 2004 03:19 PST 

Hello,
        I get a variety of book catalogs and I wanted to mention one book
that is currently available from University of North Carolina Press. The
title is Looking for Longleaf   The Fall and Rise of an American Forest by
Lawrence S. Earley. Publication date is 2004. Sale price is $25.00. Here
is the blurb from the catalog:

"A learned stroll through the shady groves of the South, past and present. .
. . Richly detailed, impeccably researched, and at times controversial:
this merits a place alongside Bartram in the library devoted to the South."

Ed Nizalowski
Newark Valley, NY
Re: Long Leaf Pine and more   Fores-@aol.com
  Nov 07, 2004 05:32 PST 
Bob:

There is a lot currently happening in terms of appreciating longleaf pine
and the significance of the longleaf pine forest ecosystem that once covered
more than 30,000,000 acres of the south. From what I understand there is less
than 300,000 acres of this forest type left today.


Russ
RE: Book on the Long Leaf Pine and more   Robert Leverett
  Nov 08, 2004 05:42 PST 

Russ:

   I once heard a lecture by Bill Pratt of LSU on the longleaf pine
ecosystem and its unusual fire adaptations. The lecture was at the
University of Arkansas in October 1995. I've often wondered what may
have changed in the way of our understanding since then.

   Bill Pratt had a dry sense of humor and he enjoyed picking on
ecologists from the Northeast who he regarded as being a little too
fixated on the forest disturbance regimes of the Northeast. I didn't
have an opinion on the subject, but enjoyed watching the good-natured
jocking between Pratt and a couple of northeastern ecologists.

   I came away with a better appreciation for the nature of the
competition among scientists to gain acceptance of and dominance for
their ideas. The general public often thinks of science as monolithic
and of scientists as unswervingly objective - not personal agendas.
Well, certainly scientists are supposed to be that way and I believe
most make an admirable effort, but human nature IS human nature.

   At any rate, at the Arkansas conference, Pratt argued eloquently for
the role of evolutionary fire adaptation as another model to explain the
patterns of forest colonization and succession. I wonder what the
current state is of those theories.

Bob