Exploring the Granite State, Part 1: An Island of Life Amid Bare Rock | Cardigan Mountain State Forest, New Hampshire, USA
Taken near the summit of the geologically wondrous Mount Cardigan.
And much of Mount Cardigan's summit is bare rock: the Early Devonian Kinsman Granodiorite, now reclassified by petrologists as a quartz monzonite (see Part 2 of this set). The large potassium-feldspar phenocrysts of this igneous intrusive rock type are visible in the foreground.
However, the summit is also home to scattered island plant communities of what New Hampshire ecologists call the Subalpine Heath-Krummholz association. The term "krummholz," derived from the German word for "crooked wood," refers to the windblasted Red Spruces (Picea rubens) that survive here only in low, contorted forms.
When I took a good look at this particular island, i found that it was remarkably well laid out in distinct zones of different species, as though a gardener had carefully placed the lowest growers in front and the tallest in the center. On the edges there were Prostrate Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) and Mountain Cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus); a little farther in, the mini-shrub Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum) dominated. And in the middle, joining the scraggily Red Spruce, was Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana), here visible as almost-bare stems that had not yet leafed out fully by mid-May.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Exploring the Granite State album.
Exploring the Granite State, Part 1: An Island of Life Amid Bare Rock | Cardigan Mountain State Forest, New Hampshire, USA
Taken near the summit of the geologically wondrous Mount Cardigan.
And much of Mount Cardigan's summit is bare rock: the Early Devonian Kinsman Granodiorite, now reclassified by petrologists as a quartz monzonite (see Part 2 of this set). The large potassium-feldspar phenocrysts of this igneous intrusive rock type are visible in the foreground.
However, the summit is also home to scattered island plant communities of what New Hampshire ecologists call the Subalpine Heath-Krummholz association. The term "krummholz," derived from the German word for "crooked wood," refers to the windblasted Red Spruces (Picea rubens) that survive here only in low, contorted forms.
When I took a good look at this particular island, i found that it was remarkably well laid out in distinct zones of different species, as though a gardener had carefully placed the lowest growers in front and the tallest in the center. On the edges there were Prostrate Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) and Mountain Cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus); a little farther in, the mini-shrub Labrador Tea (Ledum groenlandicum) dominated. And in the middle, joining the scraggily Red Spruce, was Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana), here visible as almost-bare stems that had not yet leafed out fully by mid-May.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Exploring the Granite State album.