Post 23491
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The lodge-pole does good work in developing places that are inhospitable to other and longer-lived trees, but it gives way after preparing for the coming and the triumph of other species. By the time lodge-poles are sixty years of age their self-thinning has made openings in their crowded ranks. In these openings the shade-enduring seedlings of other species make a start. Years go by, and these seedlings become great trees that overtop the circle of lodge-poles around them. From this time forward the lodge-pole is suppressed, and ultimately its fire-acquired territory is completely surrendered to other species. It holds fire-gained areas from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty years. It is often supplanted by Douglas or Engelmann spruce. Let fire sweep these, and back comes the lodge-pole pine.
Though it distances all competitors in taking possession of fire-cleared territory, it is less successful than its fellows in entering a territory already occupied by other trees or by grass, because its seedlings cannot endure shade, and its seeds will not germinate or take root except they be brought directly into contact with clean mineral soil. The lodge-pole, therefore, needs the assistance of fire both to acquire and to hold territory. Increase the number of forest fires, and the lodge-pole extends its holdings; if we could stop fires altogether, the lodge-pole would become almost extinct.
The lodge-pole has an astonishing altitudinal as well as latitudinal range. Scattered pretty well over the mountain region of the western United States, thence northward along the coast over much of the head-waters of the Yukon in Alaska, it occupies an enormous area. Over this it adapts itself with marked success to a variety of soil, moisture, and climatic conditions, and covers ragged tracts from warm sea-beaches to dry, cold mountain slopes eleven thousand feet above the sea. In many places it surrenders the traditional pole form of its race and wins success by becoming thick-barked, stocky, and limb-covered from top to bottom.