Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Maine, and extending farther south, at higher altitudes, along the spine of the Appalachians. In the Gaspé-
Maritime region, balsam fir occurs in the highest densities on the better-drained sites, and black spruce is more
abundant in wetter areas but rarely occurs in pure stands. White spruce and paper birch are often associated
with these two dominant conifers, with white spruce dominating in coastal areas because of its tolerance to salt
spray. A moss-heath vegetation or barrens is typical of coastal areas exposed to high winds, such as Cape St.
Mary's in Newfoundland, where the trunks of century-old shrubs are smaller than your little finger and will
grow only to ankle height.
At other coastal sites in Newfoundland, wind-contorted balsam fir or white spruce grows so thickly it is im-
possible to penetrate it. It is sometimes possible, however, to walk on top of this hedgelike growth, which is
the result of the krummholz effect, a term derived from the German for “crooked wood.” Krummholz is also
common on the highest peaks of the Appalachians, such as Mount Carleton in New Brunswick and Mount Ka-
tahdin in Maine. These trees are usually less than 3 meters (9 feet) high and sometimes less than one meter (3
feet), but their bottom whorl of branches may extend out from the central stem more than 2 meters (6 feet).
Dwarf shrubs and abundant lichen cover open ground on these alpine summits.
Black spruce emerge from a gray ground cover of caribou lichen along a great northern river.
As you move farther north, black spruce replaces balsam fir as the dominant species until it takes over al-
most entirely on the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula. A.P. Low traversed this forbidding landscape in 1896 for the
Geological Survey of Canada, and his acute observations still stand as the best description of this northernmost
section of the Atlantic boreal forest:
