oct. i, 1917 Reproduction from Seed Stored in the Forest Floor 
15 
On the area burned only once in 1892 almost all of the timber was 
killed. Occasional patches in such places as near a marsh or spring were 
left unbumed. The fire-killed trees still stand, most of them retaining 
their branches and some of them even fragments of their bark. These 
are indications of a killing but not a consuming fire. The area has very 
much the appearance of the Columbia burn, with one striking and con¬ 
sistent difference. Where the Columbia burn has a fairly dense and gen¬ 
erally satisfactory cover of reproduction, the Mount Adams burn has 
very sparse and inadequate reproduction. The average per acre of all 
species, based on 80 contiguous acres, was 436 seedlings per acre on the 
Columbia bum and 56 seedlings per acre on the Mount Adams burn. 
This lack of seedlings in the Mount Adams burn is apparently due to the 
light volcanic soil, which causes a drier forest floor and consequently a 
more complete consumption of the litter and duff by an average fire. 
The composition of the reproduction actually found in the Mount 
Adams burn is as follows: 
Per cent. 
True firs.. 66 
Pines. 23. 6 
Other species... 10. 4 
'Noble. 
'.Silver. 
'Whitebark (Pinus albicaulis Kngelm.).. 
Western white. 
Lodgepole {Pinus murrayana) . 
Western yellow (Pinus ponderosa Laws) 
Western hemlock. 
Engleman spruce (Picea engelmanni 
Engelm.). 
Douglas fir... 
35 
3i 
9 
8 
5 
1. 6 
9 
1 
o. 4 
There is every reason to believe that the composition of the forest 
before the fire was closely in accord with these figures, although it was 
not possible to check this absolutely. The distribution of this reproduc¬ 
tion over the burn was fairly even, with the natural exception that in 
the vicinity of green timber where the fire had obviously abated there 
was the usual fringe of dense reproduction. 
That the distribution of reproduction was found to be independent of 
the location of possible seed trees indicates that here, as on the Columbia 
burn, the source of much of that reproduction must have been seed 
stored in the forest floor previous to the fire. This fundamental point is 
especially emphasized in the case of whitebark pine, which was found 
throughout the burn. 
Whitebark pine produces a heavy winged seed, but the wing is retained 
on the cone scale when the seed is liberated, hence the distance of wind 
migration is very limited. However, seedlings were found at distances 
of more than a mile from the nearest seed trees. 
A peculiar feature of the occurrence of these whitebark pine seedlings 
gave an early clue to a convincing explanation of their presence so far 
from seed trees. Throughout the burn they were found most often 
occurring in little clumps containing from 3 to 15 seedlings, and occa¬ 
sionally as many as 18 were found in a clump. The seedlings in such 
7765 °— 17—2 
