Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - I. Physical Geography - 4. Vegetation. By Lector A. Nilsson, Ph. D., Institute of Forestry, Stockholm
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THE VEGETATION. 55
The firwoods have commonly emerged from fire clearings. Birch appears,
as a rule, first on such clearings, but is always sooner or later displaced by
fir-trees. In this way are generally first formed unmixed pine woods with a
bottom-covering of reindeer-moss (Cladina species) and small moss-spots — pine
heath*. The moss expands slowly — forming a closed moss-covering — and so mossy
pinetcoods are developed. In the moss-covering the spruce-seeds find suitable
ground for germination. Hereby the spruce gradually appears as the
undergrowth in the pine woods and later on takes as important a place as the pine
— mixed firwoods — until it finally altogether supersedes the pine — mossy
spruce woods. As this development takes place, the ground-covering is also
changing. In the moss-covering, which originally consists of Hylocomium parietinum
L. interspersed with spots of Dicranum, Hylocomium proliferum L. makes its
appearance and becomes finally the dominant moss of the spruce woods. On the
pine heaths the red whortleberry or cowberry-shrub is dominant in the north,
while heather (Calluna vulgaris Salisb.) predominates in the south of the region.
With these are intermingled bilberries (Myrtillus nigra Gilib.), crowberry,
common bearberry (Arctostaphylus uva ursi Spreng.), wavy hair-grass (Aira flexuosa
L.), Trientalis europæa L., and others. The bearberry and heather disappear
gradually in the mossy woods, while the other species mentioned grow more
abundant, especially cowberries and in a yet higher degree bilberries. Besides these,
there appear some other species as Linnaea, wood-rush (Luzula pilosa Willd.),
Majanthemnm bifolium Schmidt., cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum L. and
pra-tense L.) in the mossy pine woods, and in the spruce woods also broad shield-fern
(Aspidium spinulosum Sw.) and Polypodium Phegopteris L. From these types of
woods are evolved boggy firwoods of diverse qualities in such a way that
bog-plants more or less supplant the former surface growth. Such plants are
Poly-trichum commune L. and species of Sphagnum, Carex globularis L., wood
horsetail (Equisetum silvaticum L.), with most of the plants peculiar to peat-bogs, as
Ledum palustre L., bog-whortleberry and cotton-sedge (Eriophorum vaginatum L.).
Vångforsen Rapids in the Ångerman River.
Photo. N. O. Nilsson.
Sollefteå.
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