FORESTS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



reproduces vegetatively, nor have conifers in general 

 this power, their propagation depending on 

 the production of abundant seed. In the red- 

 wood, on the contrary, while stump sprouts are 

 abundant and vigorous, seedlings in the forest are 

 a rarity by reason of the unfavorable character of 

 the seed-bed, the heavy layer of undecayed twigs 

 and leaves, and the dense shade. Perhaps 80 per 

 cent of the present redwood stand has arisen from 

 stump sprouts, and not from seed. Aside from its 

 power of regeneration the redwood is well safe- 

 guarded against forest fires by its very thick fibrous 

 bark and non-resinous trunk, features of protection 

 which recall the structural characteristics of the 

 Big Tree. 



In the second instance the redwood owes its 

 dominance to favoring climatic conditions. The 

 daily range of temperature varies little, on the 

 whole, from the seasonal range. The climate is 

 moist or rainy during the rainy season, foggy and 

 moist during the rainless summers. Proximity to 

 the ocean brings the redwood within the influence 

 of the summer fog belt, and, indeed, there is no 

 other influence so potent as the summer fogs in 

 determining the presence and limits of the Red- 

 wood Belt. In a favorable spot such as Sherwood 

 Valley, where the redwood forest ends on the in- 

 side like an abrupt wall, the writer has watched of 

 afternoons the fog bank drift inland and then sea- 

 ward, swinging in and out like a pendulum, and 

 finally coming to rest just over the edge of the 

 Redwood Belt a wall of foliage reaching into the 

 air 150 to 175 feet with a sharply defined fog bank 

 resting directly over it. One is seldom privileged 

 to view so impressive a spectacle of this kind, or 

 one so freighted with ecological significance. 



Everywhere associated with the redwood one 

 finds the tan oak (Quercus densiflora), highly valu- 

 able for its bark, and the madrofia (Arbutus men- 

 ziesii), a tree of singular beauty. Both these spe- 

 cies attain almost gigantic size in the forests of 

 Humboldt County. 



The "tree islands" of the south coast ("islands," 

 in the biological sense), are vestiges or fragments 

 of at one time extensive forests of the southern 

 Coast Ranges; their history is associated with the 

 geological history of the region and the succession 

 of uplifts and subsidences which have taken place 

 in the land mass on the edge of the continental 

 shelf since Miocene time. 



The "tree island" at Monterey is at once the 

 most accessible, the most interesting, and the most 



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