Friday 16 January 2015

Identify America's 100 Most Common Trees

Identify America's 100 Most Common Trees

  A Guide for Specific Tree Identification

Quick Starts to Tree Identification
Start your tree ID with myTree Finder and Tree Leaf Key if you are not sure what kind of tree you have and the tree has leaves. If you have adormant tree with no leaves in winter, review my Winter Tree Finder and my Dormant Tree Photo Gallery for extra help.
Here are the most common North American hardwoods or trees variously known as angiosperms, broadleaf, deciduous and hardwoods. These trees are abundant in both individual tree count and varieties of species in the Eastern North American forest. Hardwood foliage are leaves that can be broad or narrow, thick and thin generally shed annually and can be aligned in an alternate or opposite arrangement. The mature fruits are acorns, nuts, berries, pomes, drupes, samaras, capsules.
Here are the most common North American conifers or trees variously known as gymnosperms, conifers, evergreens and softwoods. These trees are abundant and grow through out North America. Conifers have needles or scale-like leaves and cones which normally (but not always) keep foliage or needles through the entire year. The mature fruits are described as woody, leathery or fleshy cones.

BEST BUY IS WASTING ANCIENT FORESTS, ONE FLYER AT AT TIME

BEST BUY IS WASTING ANCIENT FORESTS, ONE FLYER AT AT TIME

 
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Today Greenpeace released a report exposing Best Buy, the giant electronics retailer, for fueling destruction in Canada’s Boreal Forest. Our report reveals the company is sourcing an incredible 100 million pounds of paper every year from this ancient forest to produce throw-away flyers.
Best Buy is even sourcing this paper from controversial logging company Resolute Forest Products which is responsible for the destruction of vast swathes of Canada’s Boreal Forest, degrading critical caribou habitat and logging without the consent of impacted First Nations.
We wrote this report to bring to the public’s attention something surprising. In the digital age, a company that specializes in gadgets and electronics is wasting ancient forests to make flyers.
Really, Best Buy?
The problem isn’t using paper made in the Boreal. The problem is using massive amounts without making sure it comes from sustainable sources. Most responsible companies have clear policies to ensure sustainable fiber in their supply chains.
Companies like Kimberly-Clark and Hewlett-Packard have these safeguards in place. But not Best Buy. When Greenpeace compared Best Buy against the others, we were surprised to find the company has no requirements for avoiding endangered species habitat or respecting Indigenous rights. No preference for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests!
These are basic criteria that the public expects and forests demand.
Best Buy says that “sustainability must be an essential element of everything the company does.” But do they mean it? The real test is whether they take concrete action to clean up their supply chains and start buying sustainably.
Clearly, they’re #NotTheBest, yet. Today, that is our message to BEST BUY: you can do BETTER!

The Structure of a Forest

The Structure of a Forest:

Forests are habitats in which the trees are the dominant form of vegetation. They occur in many regions and climates around the globe—the tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin, the temperate forests of eastern North America, and the boreal forests of northern Europe are just a few examples.

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The species composition of a forest is often unique to that forest, with some forests consisting of many hundreds of species of trees while others consist of just a handful of species. Forests are constantly changing and progress through a series of successional stages during which species composition changes within the forest.

Thus, making general statements about forest habitats can be difficult. Yet despite the variability of our planet's forests, there are some basic structural characteristics that many forests share—characteristics that can help us to better understand both forests and the animals and wildlife that inhabit them.
Mature forests often have several distinct vertical layers. These include:
These different layers provide a mosaic of habitats and enable animals and wildlife to settle into various pockets of habitat within the overall structure of a forest.
The forest floor is often blanketed with decaying leaves, twigs, fallen trees, animal scat, moss, and other detritus. The forest floor is where recycling occurs, fungi, insects, bacteria, and earthworms are among the many organisms that break down waste materials and ready them for reuse and recycling throughout the forest system.
The herb layer of the forest is dominated by herbaceous (or soft-stemmed) plants such as grasses, ferns, wildflowers, and other ground cover. Vegetation in the herb layer often gets little light and in forests with thick canopies, shade tolerant species are predominant in the herb layer.