Many people think it takes fire to make longleaf produce seeds. These pictured seedlings came from a tree that hasn’t had fire near it for more than ten years. So why so many seedlings this year?
Supposedly it takes two wet springs to produce seeds the second fall, because the cones develop the first year and produce seed the second year. We had two wet springs, the seeds fell last fall, and this spring seedlings are everywhere.
There are some seeds most years. This grass-stage longleaf came up last year:
But this year there are 20 more seedlings within 10 feet of that one.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 Feb 2010.
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