Monterey Pine

The Monterey Pine is a critically endangered species due to its fragmented range of rather small populations along the Pacific coast of North America. In fact, there are only five small populations of this tall evergreen conifer, along the California coast and on two small Mexican islands. The ancient distribution of this tree going back hundreds of thousands of years has echoed this fractured and limited range. The greatest species threat is continuing urbanization in the very desirable California Central Coast. Future climate vacillations are not an issue, since the Monterey Pine has endured through much colder and much warmer eras in the last millennia. The cones possess a remarkable trait of serotiny, where cones remain closed and sealed for years, which leads to a massive seed explosion upon the outbreak of wildfire. The winter of 2023 has proven to be the coldest winter on record in Central California in the last 73 years, as well as one of the wettest on record. With two very brief periods of high winds, an unusual number of this shallow rooted tree have fallen. This felling phenomenon can also be linked to the characteristic age of this tree of about ninety years. An unusually large number of Monterey Pines were planted on the Monterey Peninsula, when this locale was first developed in the 1920s ……more at California Arts and Sciences Institute https://www.calasinstitute.org/articles/

Posted on Μάρτιος 27, 2023 0234 ΠΜ by c_michael_hogan