Resurrecting Virginia's longleaf.A heavy sleet sleet, precipitation of small, partially melted grains of ice. As raindrops fall from clouds, they pass through layers of air at different temperatures. If they pass through a layer with a temperature below the freezing point, they turn into sleet. is falling through the pines, but Lytton Musselman, a biologist at Old Dominion University “ODU” redirects here. For other uses, see ODU (disambiguation). The university was recently named one of the best colleges in the Southeast by The Princeton Review. , is oblivious as he races about with childlike child·like adj. Like or befitting a child, as in innocence, trustfulness, or candor. childlike Adjective like a child, for example in being innocent or trustful Adj. 1. glee. The object of his excitement is a Virginia rarity: a massive longleaf pine. In this southeast corner of Virginia, an area known for its swamps, briny water, and access to the sea, Musselman is helping the state's last known stand of longleaf pine make a comeback. Although it has a long way to go, the open, park-like environment of the longleaf is beginning to return to an area where the idea is almost impossible to imagine. Longleaf pines were once plentiful in this corner of Virginia, its northernmost appearance along the Eastern Seaboard. In Tidewater's early days, the pine's tall trunks, sap, and timber were vital elements for shipbuilding, and it was harvested almost to the point of extinction. "It's the tree that built Tidewater tidewater, in U.S. history, that part of the Atlantic coastal plain between the shoreline and the farthest upstream points in rivers reached by oceanic tides. In many cases the fall line is given as the western boundary. ," says Musselman, referring to the area surrounding the harbor at Norfolk. Decades of fire prevention almost finished it off as the forests became choked with trees. But here in the isolated Zuni Pine Barrens The following is a list of pine barrens.
The sleet turns to rain as Musselman, ignoring the droplets collecting on his glasses, dashes from one tiny, spidery, green sprout to another. With a web-like delicacy, the longleaf pine sprouts are just starting to poke through a brown matt of needles covering the forest floor where a controlled burn Prescribed or controlled burning (back burning) is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. Fire is a natural part of both forest and grassland ecology and controlled fire can be a tool for foresters. took place last year. In Tidewater the term "forest" usually brings to mind the thickness of the Great Dismal Swamp Great Dismal Swamp See Dismal Swamp. Refuge, a forest so thick that even refuge workers get lost just footsteps away from their vehicles. But given that fire helps longleaf to germinate and thrive, Musselman immediately initiated prescribed burning. And if he gets his way and the Zuni Pine Barrens are regularly burned as they were for countless generations, the forest here will again deserve the description "park-like." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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