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FLORA.
(59
The coniferous forests are, to a predominant degree, mixed forests of pine
and spruce of approximately equal age, often with a slight admixture of birch.
This forest-type has often developed from a clear cutting. As in the northern
region of coniferous forest, there occur pure pine-forests and pure spruce-forests,
and in very poor and barren soil pine-heaths. The ground-covering in the woods
is, in general, the same as the northern region of coniferous forests, such
differences as exist not being very striking. Where the soil is highly calcareous,
as in the Silurian districts, the ground-covering consists of a meadow-like
vegetation of grasses and herbs.
The southern region of coniferous forest has a natural south-western
limit in Sweden in consequence of the spreading of the spruce. This
tree differs from the others in having immigrated from the north-west,
immediately from Finland; and from the northerly parts of the country
it has gradually spread towards the south and south-west. So far,
however, the spruce has not succeeded in spreading itself over the whole
of Sweden, but has a south-westerly limit — primarily due to causes
connected with the history of the immigration — which passes through
southern Bohuslän, south-western Västergötland, the interior of Halland,
the. south-western part of Småland, northern Skåne, and southern Blekinge
(for details see the accompanying map). Outside this limit we come to the
region of beech-forest.
The Region of Beech Forest. In this region the area of the forests
is, to a high degree, restricted through cultivation. Here, too, is to
be found the most fertile and best-tilled agricultural land in the whole
country. The natural woods are, to a predominant extent, composed of
deciduous trees, chiefly beech, along with which the stalked oak (Quercus
pedunculata) and the sessile oak (Quercus sessiliflora) pla3^ a conspicuous
part. In the coniferous forests only the pine occurs wild, but the spruce
lias been planted in many places and grows extremely well.
The beech forests are, as a rule unmixed and compact; dry, brown leaves
cover the ground, which in spring, before the beeches put forth leaves, is often
covered with innumerable anemones, musk woodruff (Asperula odorato),
yellow-root (Oaleobdolon luteum) a vegetation which in summer entirely disappears or
becomes inconspicuous. The oak here attains forms that are statelier and finer
than in the southern region of coniferous forests, and the oak forests are also
more compact. On fairly moist ground there occur beautiful forusts of
common alder (A Inns glutinosa).
Though in Sweden the forest forms the type of vegetation conditioned
by the climate, yet both the cultivated and the edaphic plant-formations
are so widely distributed that they contribute powerfully to the general
character of the landscape. The great agricultural districts have, to a
predominant degree, had their character determined by agriculture. The
variation in the landscape that they effect is due, in no small degree,
to the varying distribution of field and meadow and to the use of the
soil for different sorts of cultivated plants.
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