BOOK REVIEW
In the Pines, In the Pines: An Excerpt from Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest, by Lawrence S. Earley
A longleaf pine forest on a bright day is a light and sound show.
There's the verdant ground cover, mostly grasses that sway to each
hint of breeze. The forest is open with widely scattered trees, and
the early morning sun casts angled shadows from the pine trunks; by
midday each tree will be standing in its own small pool of shadow.
Here and there, dense groups of young pine saplings gather and the
tufts of infant pines are nearly indistinguishable from the
wiregrass. Above, the sky burns azure. The sound emanates from the
treetops, a low and constant tone like the surf crash of a distant
sea. Even on a perfectly still day you may hear this roar in the
distance, as if somewhere an individual tree was gathering and
amplifying some ambient sound. The great eighteenth-century explorer
William Bartram described it as "the solemn symphony of the
steady Western breezes, playing incessantly, rising and falling
through the thick and wavy foliage."
Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American
Forest
Lawrence S. Earley
The University of North
Carolina Press, $27.50
About once a month at Sigma Xi headquarters, we liven up the lunch hour with an American Scientist Pizza Lunch talk. In these informal lectures, scientists describe new research to nonscientists. The series is light on jargon but heavy on solid science. Each Pizza Lunch offers an in-depth look at its subject, whether it's bedbugs or the smart grid. Click below to read about and download these talks -- and to subscribe!
