SHADOWSHINE, AN ANIMAL ADVENTURE
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Why do we humans destroy our own home?

5/12/2020

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Humans do not, in any fashion, have “dominion” over the Earth. Such a concept of humanity’s relationship with Earth’s biodiversity is full of arrogance and false identity. It’s pure propaganda. Mother Nature isn’t sweet, but she is certainly in charge. And the sooner we realize it, the better.

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Forbs of the Woodland Plant Community

5/4/2020

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Now that we have completed the brief survey of the grasses (family Poaceae) of the shortleaf pine-oak-hickory woodland grassland we can move on to the forbs. Forbs are non-grass, non-woody plants, which basically means that they are not trees, shrubs or grasses. On the other hand, herbaceous plants include the forbs along with the grasses.
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Salient Warm Season Grasses of the Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland Groundcover | PART 2

4/10/2020

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In this post I will continue the list of the salient warm season grasses of the shortleaf pine-oak-hickory woodland. However, I remind you that there are numerous other grass species that are part of the ecosystem, so these seven grasses (three listed in the previous post and four in this one) represent only a few important “poster children” of the system.
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Salient Warm Season Grasses of the Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland Groundcover

3/9/2020

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Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is the dominant “matrix” grass of our shortleaf pine-oak-hickory woodland grassland just as it is with the vast majority of all tallgrass prairie groundcovers whether in a prairie or a woodland or a savannah.

Little bluestem is a warm season grass. Grasses are divided into cool season grasses that bloom and go to seed in the spring, and the warm season grasses that bloom and go to seed in fall; and some grasses are both.

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Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

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The Groundcover of the Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland

2/11/2020

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It was a grassland! I’ll get to that, but first a word about some of the North American grasslands of old.

It’s difficult to imagine what it would be like to actually see and appreciate the vastness of the grassland prairies of the Great Plains because today they’re almost all plowed under and gone. However, there are still a few small remnants remaining as the last examples of unplowed prairie—and they are beautiful, historic vistas where the buffalo roamed and native American people followed the herds. Such preserved sites are well worth visiting.
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The Nature Conservancy’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Northeastern Oklahoma.
Little Bluestem in foreground.


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Thank You Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge

1/31/2020

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I recently had the opportunity to present my PowerPoint on restoration ecology and give a reading and book signing of Shadowshine: An Animal Adventure at the Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge. So Shadowshine is now on sale in the Refuge gift shop. I consider it an honor to have my animal characters make a home in a National Wildlife Refuge. Think of it—the forest-folk are now under the full protection of the United States government. (OK, maybe I’m stretching it a bit, but I love the concept).  

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Shortleaf Pine

1/9/2020

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The eighth and last member of the Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland Overstory is the shortleaf pine, Pinus echinata. The seven other members were the fire-resistant hardwood species consisting of the five oaks and the two hickories that I’ve shown in the last two blog posts.
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The Grand Potentate of the Overstory

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The Four Remaining Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland Hardwoods

12/10/2019

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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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The Overstory of the Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Woodland

11/20/2019

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The overstory consists of relatively fire-resistant trees (recall that this woodland plant community was sustained by periodic hot fires).

There are only eight true card-carrying members of the shortleaf pine-oak-hickory woodland overstory. They are post oak, white oak, southern red oak, black oak, blackjack oak, mockernut hickory, black hickory and the shortleaf pine. The first three are shown in this blog and the others will follow in future blogs addressing woodland grassland restoration.
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Post Oak; Quercus stellata

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The Shortleaf Pine-Oak-Hickory Ecosystem

10/29/2019

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In this post, I’ll begin a discussion of some of the salient features of the shortleaf pine-oak-hickory plant community, the foundation of the ecosystem that I am in the process of restoring. It’s a big project in which I’ve been involved for more than a decade.
 
This ecosystem was the dominant plant community of the Upper West Gulf Coastal Plain Ecoregion, encompassing northwest Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, northeast Texas and southeast Oklahoma.


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    Johnny Armstrong, Author

    #Biodiversity advocate. Ecosystem Restorationist. Steward of an old-growth forest and woodland in northern Louisiana. #ForestFolkMatter #ScienceMatters

    Now that my 42-year career as a pathologist is a story for another time, I’m focusing my energy on my long-time passion for and commitment to critical conservation issues.

    I am currently working on a non-fiction book detailing the ongoing ecosystems restoration work at Wafer Creek Ranch.

    Shadowshine is my first book in the genres of literary fiction and animal fiction.


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    “Up there on your bookshelf between Tolkien and Watership Down is where this book belongs.  As an anthropomorphic adventure that winds through the realm of animals possessing courage, savagery, perseverance, and ultimately wisdom in the face of mounting evil threats – humans disconnected from the natural world – the tale is relevant, if not necessary.”
    Kelby Ouchley, author of Bayou Diversity: Nature & People in the Louisiana Bayou Country

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Shadowshine, An Animal Adventure
by Johnny Armstrong
ISBN-10: 1771834609
ISBN-13: 978-1771834605


#ForestFolkMatter #BookstoRead
#Fiction #Literature #LiteraryFiction #AnimalFiction


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