LODGEPOLE PINE FOREST AND WOODLAND (44)

Geographic Distribution. A common forest cover type found throughout the central and southern Cascades, east of the crest; and in smaller, scattered mosaics throughout the mountains of northeastern Oregon, and along the crest of the Cascades.

This cover type is most extensive in the same geographic area as the ponderosa-lodgepole pine on pumice type; but warrants distinction because it occurs on mid-slopes and ridges and is a forest type responding from wild fires, not soil conditions.

Structure and Appearance. Single layer, open to closed canopies, dominated by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta). A typical post-fire successional path for this cover type is to have dense reproduction of short stature lodgepole. As the stand matures lodgepole cover thins to scattered overstory lodgepole with regeneration layers of other conifers. These other conifers, regionally important replacement trees would be: Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), grand fir (Abies grandis), white fir (A. concolor), incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens), and western white pine (Pinus monticola) will eventually form the overstory and eliminate lodgepole from the stand entirely.

Composition. Lodgepole dominates the overstory in early to mid successional stands. Western larch (Larix occidentalis), another post-fire colonizing conifer, can be co-dominant in this cover type, especially in the northeastern Oregon mountains. Regeneration layers are composed of conifers listed in the structure and appearance section.

Shrubs are common and diverse in this cover type: common snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus), mountain snowberry (S. mollis), serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia), ninebark (Physocarpus malvaceus), shiny-leaf spirea (Spiraea betulifolia), bitterbrush, (Purshia tridentata), baldhip rose (Rosa gymnocarpa), myrtle pachistima (Pachistima myrsinites), and several huckleberries (V. membranaceum, V. scoparium, V. uliginosum, and V. caespitosum).

Grasses dominate some understories with few shrubs. Pine grass (Calamagrostis rubescens), Ross' sedge (Carex rossii), elk sedge (Carex geyeri), bluebunch wheatgrass (Agropyron spicatum), western needlegrass (Stipa occidentalis), Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis), prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha), and mountain brome (Bromus carinatus) are commonly found.

Landscape Setting. Since this forest cover type usually is the response following wild fires there is no environmental relationship that controls its distribution. This cover type appears as a mosaic within the larger, regionally important cover types.

References. Hopkins 1979, Johnson and Clausnitzer 1986, Johnson and Simon 1987, Crawford et al. 1999, Kagan and Caicco 1992.