This is bugging me! Meadows..

[Mr. BrownTrout]

Paul Bunyun forgot to plant tree's there....thats why

[OceanBlue]

God's designated picnic areas?

[Digifish]

My theory is we sometimes fail to understand the world around us because we seldom comprehend the scale of time. Our lives exist in such a small duration that we do not give time the same weight in interpreting the physical world as we do to the other 3 dimensions, X, Y and Z. Time, whether it has passed or will pass, is just too difficult of an idea to always hang on to.


The meadow is but a blink in the flora race for space and time. It is not permanent but just a temporary condition where certain forces of nature have overcome others (the trees are having an argument with the soil and the sun and have temporarily retreated and have allowed the lowly grasses to stand tall! :tongue: ).

The meadow is here about the same amount of time as a rain drop or a mountain, depending on your view of time.... :smile:

[STGRule]

I think meadows are the next step in a dried up lake. Lake silts in, emergent flora takes over, more silting, lake dries up , grasses moves in, meadow, then brush, then trees, then forest.

[GutshotApe]

Many of the flatter meadows in drainage basins are former marshes...on their way to bigger & better things. Old adage among botanists: Nothing succeeds like plant succession. Most of the meadows in the Coast Range valleys are probably artifacts of earlier settlement when the riverbottom and sidehill forest was cleared and the trees & stumps burned to create pasture. On higher coast range ridgetops, esp. on south-facing slopes, there are a few natural meadows that have been kept open, apparently by fire, although these grass & sedge areas are also being encroached upon by trees and are shrinking...

Many coast range meadows are reverting to forest...ODFW and landowners are cooperating in maintaining and increasing some of them by cutting, spraying and burning. Now that clearcuts are few & far between, existing meadow areas are of increasing importance to wildlife.

[Jennie@ifish]

Gotta love this place. Campfire talk with lots of interesting answers. Lots to ponder.

Thanks for giving me a piece of your mind. [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img]

[Jennie@ifish]

OK, I live in a forested area, and our house is in a meadow.

Why are there meadows? How did they get formed? Why is there meadows in the middle of a forest? Why did trees and brush not grow here?

Is it soil differences or what?

I know this is silly, but it does intrigue me!!!

Jen

[RogueFishr]

I think its kind of like being bald. Hair grows around the outside perimiter, but not in the middle. Same soil, same environmental exposure, same care, etc. Another of life's great mysteries


RF

[Mr. BrownTrout]

Or could meadows be where UFO's have landed, smaller meadows for the small ships and very large meadows are for the motherships?????

[skein]

Mr BrownTrout, you're partially right. Only it's not aliens. It's where those Black Helicopters land.

I can hear one now....and the elk are gathering to meet it.

[img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

Skein