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2011-12-10 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach - Ameisberg region (680 msm Quadrant 7448/2).German name: FichteThis is a spruce monoculture forest; fir and broadleaf trees (beech first and foremost, but also birch, a pioneer) however already struggle to grab a hold there.
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Telemark Fylke, Norway
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Spruce cones in april sun
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Tambre, Veneto, Italy
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2011-12-25 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach - Ameisberg region (710 msm Quadrant 7448/2).This forest has been planted some 50 years ago: when I was young it still consisted of almost exclusively
spruce (all of them platned), which were probably 15-20 years old (that was in the 1970ies).Meanwhile, trees have grown to an age of around 50 years (there are only rather few older trees which haven't been cut then, in the 1950ies/60ies), and some younger ones filling the gaps of felled trees.Interestingly, even though there once were only spruce it is the fir tree which already grows many young ones amidst them, and there are even some beeches already. This only shows how very marginally native (if native at all) spruce is in this habitat, and at this altitude.Undergrowth is very sparse and almost exclusively is composed of
Vaccinium myrtillus.
Field name (Flurname): Reidl
Close-up of one young fir tree here.
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2010-10-10 Forest on the European Green Belt (Grnes Band Europa), the border between Austria (Burgenland, district Oberpullendorf) and Hungary (Nyugat-Dunntl - Western Transdanubia, county Vas) runs along the green strip of meadow between birch and spruce forest (850 m AMSL).To the left, on the Austrian side, there's a spruce monoculture - Picea abies; the borderline itself has been kept free from growth, or so it seems, and to the right you see a young birch forest - Betula pendula: certainly younger than the dismantling of the Iron Curtain (which began after 1991).
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Amotsdal, Telemark Fylke, Norway
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2008-12-08 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach/O - Hochficht, Bhmerwald/ Bohemian Forest (1200 msm Quadrant 7349/1).
See remarks here.
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2008-12-08 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach/O - Hochficht, Bhmerwald/ Bohemian Forest (1200 msm Quadrant 7349/1).At this altitude, spruce would dominate even without human intervention - however, there would also be some broadleaf trees (beech especially), on poorer soil also pine - evne at this altitude, and there are on places which are more or less left alone. Not so here where there's hardly any other tree but spruce.
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2008-07-27 Lower Austria, district Wiener Neustadt-Land (1160 msm Quadrant 8161/3).Here, on the Western slope of Drre Wand, predominant wind directions are easily predicted by the shape of spruce twigs: westerly winds prevail, and thus twigs are orientated eastwards.At this altitude spruce is native (and common, while it is not native in lower lying regions), but beech also grows here: see the stem centre-right of this photo.
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Telemark Fylke, Norway
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Amotsdal, Telemark Fylke, Norway
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2011-12-10 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach - Ameisberg region (680 msm Quadrant 7448/2).Ravine forest;
see also remarks here.With young spruce in the foreground: while spruce isn't native to the habitat there grow such a number of (planted) trees, resulting in a great number of seeds, that plenty of spruce seedlings sprout wherever conditions are favourable.
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2010.05.09 Austria, Upper Austria, district Freistadt (930 m AMSL).The bog begins where Pinus uncinata grows, to the right in the photo (just left of it, and also in the background, Picea abies; and also in the background some specimens of Betula pubescens are visible).In Mhlviertel not too common, restricted to moorish parts of higher lying regions.German name: Moor-SpirkeID: Fischer & al., Exkursionsflora (2008 3rd): the authors specifically refer to the Upper Austrian populations too, which show features of both Pinus mugo and Pinus uncinata, and they suggest that this is most likely a transitional population between both, so essentially a hybrid population; however, the exact taxonomical position of those is still discussed controversially. So for now I am tagging this photos with both the suggested hybrid name as well as (both) possible parental species: P. x rotundata (
P. mugo ssp. rotundata - EOL), P. mugo, P. uncinata.See comment of
Sciadopity: P. uncinata removed, P. mugo ssp. rotundata by reckoning of Sciadopitys, and P. x rotundata by Fischer & al.
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Trattenbach, Lower Austria, Austria
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2010-10-10 Hungary, Nyugat-Dunntl - Western Transdanubia, county Vas (840 m AMSL).This place lies a short distance below rott-k - Geschriebenstein peak; the foreground is a more or less natural spruce-beech-fir forest - with Fagus sylvatica and spruce shown in the photo -, while in the background you can see spruce monoculture - Picea abies - older than the (now dismantled) Iron Curtain (trees at least 60-80 years old, many a hundred or more).Even though the Austrian border is not far you can only see Hungarian territory here.So while the forests on the Hungarian side of this mountain are more natural by magnitudes than those on the Austrian side there are still a few monocultures there.
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2011-02-20 Upper Austria, district Rohrbach (mixed forest, 845 m AMSL).This basically is a spruce monoculture forest with however some beeches and other trees mixed in.German name: Gewhnlich-Fichte
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2010-11-09 Burgenland, district Mattersburg - view towards Kogelberg region and (background) Schneeberg mountain range (Rohrbacher Wald, 385 m AMSL).Easily distinguished from distance are spruce, pine and larch; the broadleaf trees you see here already have shed their leaves, most should be Fagus sylvatica and Quercus species - but other species certainly also are mixed in.
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Cesuna, Veneto, Italy
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2010-11-09 Burgenland, district Mattersburg (Rohrbacher Wald, 385 m AMSL).Background is a more natural (mainly) broadleaf forest; spruce and larch are not native here.
