MOUNTAIN VEGETATION
A visit to Olympic is not complete without at least one trip into the high country. Aside from the numerous trails that lead up into the mountains, there are two high country areas that may be reached by car. These are Hurricane Ridge and Deer Park. Whether the trip is made on trail or on road, an understanding of the changing pattern of plantlife will make it more enjoyable.
The climate at the top of a mountain is unlike that at the base; accordingly, the plants are different. Plant scientists have found that these vegetation differences on a mountain are similar to the changes seen between the equator and the poles. Generally speaking, each 100-foot rise in elevation is equivalent to about a 20-mile distance north. Although the change may be gradual, there are distinguishable belts of vegetation on a mountain. These belts are called life zones and have names that indicate their correspondence to zones between the equator and the poles.
Altogether there are four life zones in the Olympic Mountains: Transition, Canadian, Hudsonian, and Arctic-Alpine. The vegetation of the last three is similar to that of regions to the north at lower elevations, as indicated by their names.
The Transition zone in the Olympics is the lowest. It is intermediate between southern and northern vegetation. The lowland forests, including the rain forest already described, are in this zone.
The next two zones also are forest, but somewhat different. The highest, or fourth, zone is treeless. The boundaries between the forest zones here are not sharp; it is difficult to know exactly where one ends and the next begins. This merging of forest zones in the Olympic Mountains may be due to the equable temperature extending well up the mountain slopes.
The Canadian zone should be apparent when an elevation of 2,000 feet is reached. The forest of this zone is somber compared with that of the Transition zone. Although it has many kinds of small shrubs and herbaceous plants, it lacks the striking greenness of the Transition forest. Western white pine and Pacific silver fir have entered it. Western redcedar is absent, while Douglas-fir and western hemlock remain. There are numerous saprophytes on the forest floor—most of them flowering plants such as pinedrops, Indian-pipe, and coralroot.
RED ALDER IS THE FIRST TREE TO GROW AT THE EDGE OF THE CHANGING COURSES OF THE RAIN FOREST RIVERS.
The Hudsonian zone is next, and is the highest one having forest vegetation. Around 3,500 feet elevation there is a mingling of Canadian and Hudsonian trees. Some trees of the Canadian zone are still found, but some different kinds are included in the forest composition. The characteristic Hudsonian zone trees are mountain hemlock, Pacific silver fir, alpine fir, and Alaska-cedar. The last-named has typical cedar foliage. Its branches and twigs droop as if they were wilted. Trees in this zone are much smaller than those at lower altitudes and become still smaller with every upward step. At the uppermost fringe of tree growth the winds hold them close to the ground as deformed growths. This is known as krummholz, a German word meaning “crooked wood.” The name is applied to stunted forest commonly found in alpine regions. Timberline in the Olympic Mountains is generally at about 5,000 feet, which coincides with the height of many of the ridgetops. The beginning of the Hudsonian zone is the beginning of the high country. The sky is bluer and in summer an alpine fragrance adds zest to the air. The forested slopes give way, in depressions, to meadows that are brilliant with wildflowers in summer. Basins carved by snow and ice hold numerous mountain lakes, with streams flowing into and out of them.
THE CANADIAN AND HUDSONIAN LIFE ZONES ARE REPRESENTED IN THE RESPECTIVELY HIGHER FOREST BELTS THAT LIE ABOVE LUSH RAIN FORESTS.
The Hudsonian meadows, in depressions above 3,500 feet, are knee-deep in grass in July and August, and flowers form a medley of color. Aster, pedicularis, arnica, shootingstar, cinquefoil, and false-hellebore are among the conspicuous flowers there.
Stream margins and marshy ground are preferred by such plants as marshmarigold and globeflower.
MEADOWS AND CLUSTERS OF TREES OF THE HUDSONIAN ZONE.
Higher in the Hudsonian zone there are prairielike meadows where flowers bloom in profusion. Extending 60 miles across the north and east sides of the park there are thousands of acres of this meadowland on the ridges. Hurricane Ridge is in the midst of this and presents some of the finest flower displays. Some slopes in early summer are white with avalanche lilies, one of the most abundant and widespread of the mountain flowers. Near timberline they grow among the trees, as well as in the open. Other meadows are yellow with pure stands of glacier lily, one of the earliest of spring flowers. Impatient with winter, it pushes through the thinning snowbanks. Where soil is deep, subalpine lupine blooms profusely. Among the most common and conspicuous in rich meadows are larkspur, buttercup, cinquefoil, paintbrush, arnica, tiger lily, and mountain buckwheat.
Several plants found in the mountains in the northeast part of the park, where rainfall is lighter, are more typical of the hot, arid lowlands of eastern Washington and Oregon. Some of these are nodding onion, woolly eriophyllum, and barestem lomatium—their presence in the mountains may be due to the fact that the broad ridgetop meadows in the northeastern part of the park are remnants of a lower plain where these plants grew before the Olympic Mountains had risen to their present height. As the mountains were pushed up, these plants could have continued to grow and reproduce despite changing conditions.
On hillsides where the rock has weathered only into chips, or where little soil has formed, carpets of spreading phlox and rosettes of Lyall lupine are most conspicuous in early summer. Some plants grow on talus slides, on rocks broken and tumbled from peaks above, and on rocks laid bare by retreating glacial ice. Lichens and mosses, pioneers among plants, etch the rock with weak acids and thus start the slow conversion of rock into soil. Some flowering plants are pioneers, too. Common ones growing in crevices and soil pockets among the rocks in the Hudsonian zone are smooth douglasia, alumroot, and bluebell. Eventually, a flowered meadow or forested slope develops where first there was only bare rock.
The Arctic-Alpine zone is the region above timberline. It corresponds to the arctic meadows of northern Canada. In the Olympics its lower limit is about 5,000 feet and its upper limit is the tops of the peaks.
It is a harsh environment. Its shallow soil and rocks, its wind and prolonged snow and cold exclude all but the hardiest perennials. Annuals cannot live there. One growing season is too short for a plant to start from seed, complete its vegetative growth, flower, and ripen its seeds. Many of the plants are surface plants, such as mosses and lichens, which do not produce flowers. But even the flowering plants hug the ground. Their over-wintering buds are at or below the ground surface. It is a struggle for moisture and against time. Only low perennials, having small, tough leaves covered with hairs or wax, are able to survive. These properties help protect the plants against loss of water.
There are 8 kinds of mountain plants in the Olympics that are not known to grow anywhere else. It appears that these plants grew in the Olympic Mountains before the ice came and were able to survive on ridgetops that remained free of glacial ice during the long cold periods. They are thus relicts from preglacier time. None of them are trees and only two are shrubs. All the rest are herbs. Several of these, among which piper bellflower and Flett violet are especially attractive, may be found on Hurricane Ridge and on the upper slopes of Mount Angeles.
Snow is vital to mountain flowers. It provides most of the moisture for their growth and governs the length of the growing season. Spring flowers appear earliest where the snow melts first. Where snow piles up deeply, it may not melt completely till midsummer or may melt too late for plants to complete a season’s growth. On northern slopes the snow may remain all summer, and there can be no growing season.
The high country has many floral patterns, which change as the seasons progress. The flower displays are usually best around the middle of July. Flowers of spring, summer, and autumn are blooming then, according to the progress of the seasons in different elevations and habitats.
ALPINE FIR GROWS NEAR TIMBERLINE.
WESTERN REDCEDAR BARK HAS FAIRLY REGULAR NARROW GROOVES AND RIDGES.
NEXT TO THE SEQUOIAS OF CALIFORNIA, DOUGLAS-FIR IS THE GREATEST TREE IN THE FORESTS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.
WESTERN REDCEDAR. CONES ARE ABUNDANT ON SOME TREES.