Ponderosa Pine Forest
Just as grassland merges with oak woodland and chaparral, and these with oak-pine woodland, so you will notice, as you climb steadily higher, that these woodlands gradually mingle with the open pine forests that cover much of the Rincon Mountains above 6,000 feet. PONDEROSA PINE is the “big tree” of the Rincons, usually growing in clear, open stands. Through its high canopy of spreading branches, sunlight mottles the shaded forest floor. Its presence indicates still cooler and wetter conditions than those below. Here you will need blankets at night, though summer days are warm.
Except for grasses such as PINE DROPSEED, SCREWLEAF MUHLY, and MOUNTAIN MUHLY, ground cover is scarce. In tree-glades or on old burns, however, intermediate-type shrubs (such as BUCKBUSH) and various herbs have established themselves. Some herbs develop into patches of colorful flowers in summer and autumn. Common flowering plants found among the pines are COLOGANIA; PEAVINE, with its large and showy, white, sweetpea-like blossoms throughout the summer; lupines; DOGBANE; and the familiar white WESTERN YARROW. Here, too, may be found GROUNDSEL, ASTER, FLEABANE, and others, often brightened by the presence of butterflies and other insects seeking nectar and pollen. Most of these forest flowers bloom in late summer or autumn, when plants in the desert, far below, are drab and dormant.
Throughout the pine forests, numerous small canyons and rocky outcrops favor the development of thickets of oak and locust, frequently growing together. GAMBEL’S OAK, a leaf-shedding white oak, ranges in size from a small shrub to a handsome tree. It has broad, deeply lobed leaves which provide browse for deer. Its acorns are consumed by deer, rodents, and birds, including wild turkeys. The NEW MEXICAN LOCUST also is browsed by deer. Rarely reaching tree size, this species is an attractive vegetative cover because of its odd-pinnate leaves and large clusters of purplish-pink flowers that appear in May and June. Locusts sprout freely from roots and form expanding thickets which encroach upon oak clumps. They provide a valuable network of soil-holding roots, important in retarding erosion. The best stands occur along the east slopes of the Rincons.
Relatively few in number, compared with the stands of the dominant ponderosa pine, the smaller CHIHUAHUA PINE grows on lower dry slopes and benches. Its needles are shorter than those of the ponderosa pine, and its cones are conspicuously persistent, remaining on the tree for several years. This Mexican species invades the United States in the mountain ranges of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. In the monument it is found mostly in the transition areas between oak-pine woodland and ponderosa pine forest.
The Rincon Mountains are not high enough to provide a fir-forest habitat except in a few favorable locations. On the highest parts of the Rincons, ponderosa pines dominate in the warmer, exposed locations, but whitebarked QUAKING ASPENS grow in pure stands on cooler slopes and with DOUGLAS-FIRS on the north side of Rincon Peak. West of Spud Rock are abundant small groves of MEXICAN WHITE PINE.
A cone-bearing tree growing with Douglas-fir—exclusively on higher northern and northeastern slopes of Mica Mountain—is the WHITE FIR. Flattened, gray-green needles curving upward from the branches, and large, green cones growing upright on limbs near the tops of the trees identify this beautiful evergreen. On open stands, limbs of even the large trees grow from the trunk almost down to the ground. The bark is gray or ash-colored.
BRACKEN forms a green ground cover in heavy stands of pine and fir. This fern grows 3 feet tall over much of the forested Rincon highland. Among the shrubs found on the mountaintop is the SNOWBERRY, whose leaves are browsed by deer and whose berries are eaten by birds and chipmunks.
A spring, a small mountain stream, and a meadow near Manning Camp complete the picture of the higher elevations in the monument. In this bit of meadowland are found BOXELDER, NEW MEXICAN ALDER, CINQUEFOIL, CHOKECHERRY, GOLDENROD, ORANGE SNEEZEWEED, MARIGOLD, WILLOW, and a number of other shrubs, grasses, and herbs characteristic of the high mountain meadows of the Southwest.
Jerusalem cricket (of a different family from the true crickets) has legs adapted for tunneling in sand.
animals
and how they survive
Just as plants depend for their existence on soil, water, and sunlight, so animals, including man, depend on plants. For green plants are the basic food producers in nature, manufacturing carbohydrates, proteins, and other essential compounds from minerals, air, and water, with the help of chlorophyll and the sun’s energy. Animals get their food either by eating green plants or by eating animals that have eaten plants. Microscopic decomposers complete this food chain, breaking down dead plants and animals into substances that once again can be used by plants. Since each link in the chain depends on the other links, it’s not hard to see that a change in one will cause a change in the others. And because animals depend on plants for cover as well as for food, their fortunes are doubly tied to the welfare of plants.
Animals and plants share some of the same basic problems—particularly, how to stay within tolerable temperature limits, and how to maintain an adequate supply of water. Plants solve these problems mostly by structural adaptations, animals mostly by behavioral. In the desert, for instance, cold-blooded animals such as snakes and lizards (which have no internal control over body temperature) crawl underground or into shade during the midday heat of summer, and come out to hunt food during the cooler hours. Birds and mammals cool themselves through evaporation of water from their bodies. This makes water conservation doubly critical for them; they too handle it by staying in the shade or going underground during hot times. Desert animals get much of their water from the plants and animals they eat, but some species, such as mule deer and Gambel’s quail, require large amounts of drinking water as well.
Cold weather poses another problem. Most reptiles and some mammals solve this one by hibernating underground or in rock dens, where temperatures remain moderate throughout the year. Many birds and some mammals migrate to areas where temperatures are warmer and food is more abundant, which may mean going farther south or simply moving down the mountainsides. And insects can survive in a dormant form, as eggs or pupae, though many species remain active during the temperate Sonoran winters.
If you want to see animals, then, go where the vegetation is thickest and most varied, and go when temperatures are moderate. During warm seasons in the desert, this means that walking the washes early or late in the day will give you the best chances for seeing wildlife. Coveys of Gambel’s quail explode into the air, peccaries snort through the underbrush, butterflies festoon flowering shrubs, and coyotes stealthily hunt.