The Recent Intrusion of Forests in the Ozarks

Abstract

park-like in that the trees were widely spaced and confined to the water-courses and drainage-ways. The logging operations which are now so much a part of the industry of the Ozark region are but little more than a century old. The loggers have been, and still are, cutting the first crop of trees to mature there. In some sections any tree large enough to yield a 2 x 4 is cut; and the region will be scoured again and again for more trees of that size. However, there is evidence to show that insufficient time has elapsed to develop a mature second growth of either pine or hardwoods. During a study of the flora of the northeastern edge of the Ozark Uplift an effort was made to visualize the steps which 'are supposed to precede the formation of a mature forest-the climax of the ecologist. This time-elapse study of only twelve years revealed a speeding succession of plant species not at all approaching the accepted trial-and-error elimination which is supposed to set the pattern for our forest areas. In an effort to reconstruct the Ozark forest before the advent of the -white settlements and before logging had progressed very far, a search was made for old trees. After considerable difficulty many old trees were found which bridged the gap between grassland and forests. In one detailed study of a relic (Beilmann, 1943), a ring count gave an estimated age of 327 years. This was a cwolf- tree with heavy lateral branches whose tips touched the ground; it had grown as an isolated specimen and only recently had it any neighbors. ECOLOGY