Читать книгу Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. A Hiking and Backpacking Guide онлайн

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The most obvious members of the plant community are the trees. The forests in the Klamath Mountains are marvelously diverse and include some of the largest individuals of some species seen in the United States. Two unusual conifer species, weeping spruce and foxtail pine, are fairly common in the higher elevations, and rare elsewhere. Shasta red firs grow north of Redding, extending into southwestern Oregon.

The best way to categorize the forests and other flora of the Klamath Mountains is by plant communities. As in other mountain ranges, plant communities here are determined primarily by elevation. However, many other contributing factors, including soil type, rainfall, wind, and exposure, make the dividing lines rather indistinct. There is more intermixing of species between plant communities in the Klamath Mountains than in most other mountain ranges in North America. Descriptions of six very general plant communities follow.

Mixed Low-Elevation Forest This classification represents the low-elevation community up to about 3,000 feet, including isolated riparian (streamside) communities that may be found as high as 6,000 feet. The deciduous, broadleaf trees found here include alders, dogwoods, bigleaf maples, black oaks, hazelnuts, and Oregon oaks. Douglas-fir is overwhelmingly the most common conifer in this community, but lesser amounts of ponderosa pines and Jeffrey pines also appear, as well as sparse stands of Digger pines on lower, dry slopes. Evergreens other than conifers include madrones, chinquapin, tan oaks, California live oaks, and canyon oaks.