Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations
Elevations and forest types · By Dirk Frankenberg
From grassy bald to forest
Figure 10. This grassy bald is in an early stage of succession to hardwood forest. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)
Figure 10 shows an early stage in the succession from grassy bald to forest at 5300 feet. Note the grasses growing thickly under the thickening stand of small maples and mountain ash. These trees appear to be saplings, but age determinations of this size trees in similar habitats shows them to be as much as 200 years old. These early stages of succession to forest takes a long time and suffers many setbacks as ice and wind damage and destroy the trees. Such areas often appear as if they had been pruned by humans and are called “orchard vegetation” as a result.
