The savanna

Figure 2. This forest was burned only two months before the photograph was taken. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Figures 1 and 2 are general views of longleaf pine savannas in Camp Lejeune. You can see why Captain John Smith said of these habitats, “Of thicks [thickets] there were none” when he crossed these savannas in his seventeenth-century explorations from Jamestown. You can also appreciate why the two botanists in the 1930s call the almost complete extirpation of these habitats from the southeast a “social crime.” The open ground with the column-like trunks of the pines makes these forests feel almost like a Gothic cathedral with its strong vertical elements.

Figure 1 is a forest that was burned two years earlier. Figure 2 is a forest burned two months earlier. By comparing the two, you can get an idea of how rapidly hardwoods invade these habitats if not destroyed by fire, and how completely fire eliminates the hardwoods.

In Figure 2, look closely in the foreground to see a typical “grass stage” seedling of the longleaf pine. These plants are probably one to four years old. Somewhat behind the mature pines in the foreground, you can see seedlings that have gone through their growth spurt and whose needles are now above the hottest part of a fire that might occur. These seedlings are probably four to six years old.

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