baumzaehlen - Primeval Forests & Their Trees

Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada

This park is famous due to its dinosaur bones and badlands. However, along Red Deer River there are also small beautiful Populus deltoides subsp. monilifera (plains cottonwood) groves in their natural condition. Due to erosion the river banks move slowly: when one bank collapses into the river new land is exposed on the opposite bank. P. deltoides seeds exactly when the river level sinks in the summer and seedlings establish on the exposed moist land ¹ . In this way strip-shaped groves have formed, with open strips (former river channels) between. Species diversity is low and tree identification easy. Annual precipitation is only 300–350 mm and average annual temperature approx. 5°C.

References:

1 Braatne, J. H., Rood, S. B. & Heilman, P. E. (1996): Life history, ecology, and conservation of riparian cottonwoods in North America. In Stettler, R. F., Heilman, P. E. & Bradshaw, M. D. (eds.): Biology of Populus : And Its Implications for Management and Conservation. Canadian Government Publishing.

Official site:

http://tpr.alberta.ca/parks/dinosaur/flashindex.asp