this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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This all true, but wood still burned. You think forest fires are bad now? Imagine several centuries of dry timber stacked up waiting for a lightning strike.
Suddenly it makes sense why some trees only disperse seeds after a forest fire.
Some trees have phases that depend on fire. The long leaf pine has a grass phase where it just looks like grass for a few years and stores energy in its roots. When a fire comes through and burns the above ground part, it will grow 3-4 feet in a few months.
I had to look this up as it sounded unusual, but looking at the younh plant it is basically a small trunk covered in long floppy pine leaves/needles that superficially looks like a clump of grass at first. I suspect there's no evolutionary advantage to looking like grass, but storing up energy before growing upwards makes sense if there's a periodic fire risk with each fire risk period being over a couple of years. Also handy for dealing with browsing pressure from particulary hungry critters following a fire.