Krummholz
The most enigmatic trees in MN can be found along the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior. Here these trees eek out a living with little soil to retain moisture and nutrients. They must hold strong against the strong winds and battering waves that crash along the shoreline. In the winter, this water freezes and as it thaws and refreezes these shifts can cause great damage, scouring trunks and snapping off weak branches. The rocks experience extreme temperature swings, growing hot in the day and cooling quickly at night. Few plants can tolerate the extremes of the LKu43 ecosystem of rocky coastline along Lake Superior. Many of these plants are highly adapted to these conditions, often growing very slowly and never growing very large, a way of coping with the high disturbance and lack of resources. Only the hardiest of trees can survive, things like white spruce and white cedar. They may survive, but they do not go unscathed. These trees develop a growth pattern known as Krummholz which is a German word - Krumm meaning crooked, bent, or twisted and holz meaning wood. This describes the stunted, gnarly, deformed growth pattern that these trees exhibit.
While exploring Palisade Head I noticed a Krummholz white cedar tree that was absolutely stunning. It caught my eye from a distance, so I wanted to go see it up close. The first thing I noticed was the smell! It was a warm, sunny day with a slight breeze, the most amazing aromatic smell was wafting through the air. Cedar is one of my favorite scents, but this was absolutely exceptional. I don't know if this tree has some unique chemical makeup in its sap that is a result of it braving these extreme conditions, or if it just happened to smell so good today, but this was the best smelling cedar I've ever come across. Maybe it was also the breathtaking views that helped add to the experience. This tree was also huge! Well not actually, it was quite small, a little bit taller than me with a trunk diameter just larger than I could fit both hands around. Small compared to most cedars, but for a tree in this environment that is absolutely huge. Krummholz trees grow very, very slowly. Trees just a foot high can be decades if not over a hundred years old. I wonder how long it took this tree to grow to this size: 100 years, 200 years, 500 years? I'll have to do some digging to see if I can find an equation to estimate age in similar ecosystems based on trunk circumference.
In Ojibwe culture plants are viewed as our older siblings and teachers. As the base of the food web, they provide for us, but if we learn to listen, they can also teach us many things. Sitting under grandmother cedar, inhaling her pleasant aroma, and looking out along Lake Superior I reflected on patience and dealing with adversity. She has so many insights to provide; this tree has seen many hardships in her life, life in this habitat is a constant struggle. But, she has adapted and grown in a way that suites the conditions, with great patience, surviving each day, year after year, decade after decade. In fact, it's trees that survive in the toughest of conditions which live the longest; manidoo-giizhikens is another old cedar tree that grows in a similar habitat, it is believed to be the oldest tree in MN, or take the bristlecone pines which grow similarly and are the oldest living trees in the world. In being forced to adapt to adversity, these trees become far more resilient.
There were a few other small stunted birches and spruces, maybe a few decades old, maybe more. Other than that all she's had for company are the assortment of lichens growing on the rock, the odd bird that might fly overhead, and the occasional canoe paddling by or person walking up. She's sat by observing it all, a mostly unchanged landscape, mostly unaware of the development and destruction brought about by the human landscape mere miles away. Compare that to the large red and jack pines I saw atop Enger Tower yesterday, as I looked at the beautiful site of Duluth and Lake Superior below. In their short lifespan of maybe 80-100 years those trees have seen massive change.
There were quite a few Krummholz trees that I stopped and looked at today, but none were as magnificent as this white cedar. It was also interesting looking at the much larger trees on top of Palisade Head that are much younger, as well as trees that were in the intermediate zones, still roughing it, but with a little more soil and moisture.
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