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5.0 out of 5 stars
Coastal Redwood Forest,
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This review is from: Pocket Flora of the Redwood Forest (Paperback)
This is a labor of love and Rudi Becking's life (1923-2009). The intention is to provide a "pocket" flora (it fits a large pocket) for the efficient identification of the most common and frequent plants within Sequoia sempervirens forests. Dating from the Cretaceous (100 million years ago), coastal redwoods are the dominant forest cover in the coastal fog belt to about 80 kilometers inland. The interior limit of the summer fog is the natural interior limit of coastal redwoods. These trees literally wring fresh water moisture out of the coastal fog - up to 10 centimeters per day - creating their own microclimate. Redwoods are low elevation forests, generally below 1000 meters. This is the area along the California coast from the Monterey - Ventura county line north to Brookings, Oregon. Educated in the Netherlands, Indonesia and the University of Washington, Becking was a Professor of forestry and natural resources at Humboldt State University (1960-1993). He is at his best in the field teaching and working with students. Beginning with several Natl Science Foundation grants to study redwood ecosystems in the 1960s, Redwood Creek, now in Redwood National Park, Becking and students measured one tree to be 125 meters tall. Becking testified to this in a Senate hearing on the proposed Park. Crown Simpson, who owned Time magazine, owned the land, cut down the tree and blew up the stump so the tree rings could not be counted. This is the interest and passion embodied in this book.
Each plant family covers habit, cones or flowers, male and female flowers, fruit, seeds, distribution and uses. Coastal redwoods encompass a unique forest community - some living trees 2000 years old and 107 meters tall. Becking's detailed original line drawings of 212 of the most common plants illustrate the flora. Floods and fire favor coastal redwoods and the plants associated with redwoods. Concentrations of tannic acids in wood, bark and foliage render redwoods very resistant to attacks by insects or fungi. Albino redwoods, lacking chlorophyll, occur in isolated groves. This flora is the detail lacking in broader treatments such as "Terrestrial Vegetation of California" (2007). Becking knew the redwoods well. The only thing he did not do, is climb to the tops of the trees as is now being done.
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