The Four Remaining Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland Hardwoods

In my previous post I showed you three of the seven upland hardwoods of the shortleaf pine-oak-hickory woodland overstory: post oak, white oak and southern red oak. The seven members are the fire tolerant hardwoods that can thrive in a hot-fire community of grasses and wildflowers, a grassland-under-the-trees groundcover of an open woodland that existed for thousands of years before its demise. It is virtually extinct now, having been destroyed over a time initially beginning with the European invasion that began in the fifteen hundreds and its destruction compounded over the years by the increase of population and technology that sped up the process.

These are the remaining four overstory members: blackjack oak, black oak, black hickory and mockernut hickory. In the next blog I will dwell a bit on the last member, the shortleaf pine, the grand potentate of the overstory.

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