Succession 
     
     after fire. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Succession 
     
     after cutting.- 
     
     upland sites. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Succession 
     
     after cutting: 
     
    
   
   
    
     lo w/and sites. 
     
    
   
   
    
     disease. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Forest succession. New plant communities (modifications of old ones) have been 
     
     brought about by human intervention in the forest. Fire was not an unknown thing 
     
     in 1534; even the discoverer Cartier found the community of raspberries and 
     
     gooseberries in ”treeless lands", suggesting fires set by lightning or Indians. And 
     
     there were plants adapted to survival of fires: as in Nova Scotia (Martin, 1955) the 
     
     perennials with deep rhizomes, the bracken and sheep laurel, sprout following a 
     
     fire in the same summer. Other heaths such as the blueberries are close behind; 
     
     the fireweed (Epi/obium angustifo/ium) with its cork-protected rhizome flourishes 
     
     in this community. The seeds which drift into the bare spaces are usually grasses 
     
     such as Agrostis scabra and Danthonia spicata, or fleshy fruits carried by birds: 
     
     raspberries (Rubus idaeus) and gooseberries or currants (Ribes spp.). The jack pine 
     
     (Pinus banks/ana) whose slowly opening cones are burst open by the heat of fire, 
     
     formerly a rare element of bogs and Kildare beaches, has become abundant near 
     
     Tignish and East Bideford, following fire. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The hardwood forest opened up by cutting and disease takes over a century to 
     
     regenerate. Consequently, much of the upland forest at present is in various 
     
     stages of succession. Openings often permit a dense growth of fern, Dennstaedtia 
     
     puncti/obu/a with clumps of Dryopteris spinu/osa, to spring up; such partial 
     
     openings are colonized by plants with berry fruits: Actaea rubra and the red elder 
     
     Sambucus pubens are characteristic. Red spruce and red maple are apt to follow, 
     
     or paper birch and fir. More complete cutting brings forth an earlier stage 
     
     characterized by sedges (Carex emmonsii, C. def/exa) and red maple stump 
     
     sprouts, sometimes with aspens and wire birch. However, the maples become the 
     
     shade trees soon, and the species of partial openings appear, with the new sedges 
     
     Carex deweyana, C. arctata and C. communis. With deeper shade, the herbs 
     
     Clinton/a borea/is, Maianthemum canadense, Smi/acina racemosa and Cornus 
     
     appear. 
     
    
   
   
    
     On the poorly drained soils, cutting has been less extensive. However, fire has not 
     
     been less frequent. In either case the barrens that result persist longer than in 
     
     other sites. The typical heaths are there, but rhodora (Azalea canadensis) 
     
     Wintergreen (Gau/theria procumbens) and leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne ca/ycu/ata) 
     
     are the most important, with sheep laurel next to them, and Spiraea tomentosa 
     
     accompanying them. Such sites are apt to become peaty, with the tall shrubs 
     
     Nemopanthus mucronata or Viburnum cassinoides in clumps and the lichen—coated 
     
     larch and black spruce growing up very slowly. The orchids Spiranthes lacera, S. 
     
     cernua and the club moss Lycopodium tristachyum, all typical of exposed sites, 
     
     find a place in the hummocks in such barrens. On the heavier lowland soils, partial 
     
     red maple cutting has given room to aspens and fir with some spruce. Osmunda 
     
     cinnamomea replaces bracken as the common fern. As a mossy ground cover is 
     
     established in increasing shade, the sedges Carex brunnescens, C. debi/is var. 
     
     rudgei in damp, C. lepta/ea and C. disperma in wetter spots become typical; 
     
     Cornus canadensis and Coptis groen/andica are very characteristic herbs. Along 
     
     the wooded margins of swales or rivers these sedges may be accompanied by 
     
     Athyrium fi/ix-femina, Streptopus amp/exifo/ius and Ribes lacustre. The cutting of 
     
     red or white spruce woods on damp soils usually produces vegetation first in the 
     
     damp pockets with peat and bog plants such as asters and Epi/obium spp. and 
     
     sedges; then fireweed, raspberries, elder, among the slash; then, red maple with 
     
     balsam fir and paper birch following closely. Cutting in the pine woods produces 
     
     a heath barren much like the habitat some ten years after a fire: same goldenrods, 
     
     bracken, blueberries, sheep laurel and Pyro/a rotundifo/ia, under wire birch and 
     
    
   
   
    
     22