Trees falling over
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(hurricane-force winds in the Cairngorms, 2023, photos & captions by Northwoods)
nature is messy & can deal with messy circumstances. Trees fall, and lay fallen … trees have fallen for as long as trees have been around. The "fallen" state is a state in which evolutionary processes have also operated within. So long as the tree lives to reproduce … so long as it maintains its fingers in the soil …
Many many many trees will cling on, grow upward with new shoots perpendicular upward from the fallen trunk. Fallen trunks & stumps naturally coppice, coppicing keeping them in a perpetual juvenile state and allowing the tree to live on for ages.
regardless of coppice or death, the falling of trees amongst standing-trees introduces habitat variety … not all life celebrates in the old-growth forest. Some need the young shoots to eat, unable to reach higher boughs. Some need the torn-wounds of a freshly fallen tree for their spores to settle and grow. Some need decaying wood to burrow into, some need the wood-decaying-things for food.
A fallen tree opens up the canopy and sunlight reaches the ground, where sun-loving plants can now grow.
this is not devastation only, but would become so if we tidied it up ... but we didn’t. So this is now both a breaking & an opening-up of space for new life.
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