On the first slopes above the river road, hemp (Cannabis) and marestail (Conyza) dominate the understory of a woodland that now consists mainly of skeletons of eastern redcedar and oak trees.  Most of the oaks have resprouts from their bases, however, and a few still have live branches up high.

The abundance of marestail (a native pioneering species) is especially interesting to me because it’s the same species that usually dominates two-year-old prairie plantings.  This is the role it plays in ecosystems, and it plays it well.  It’s difficult to see very much below the marestail, but when I looked closely, I found scattered grasses, sedges, and wildflowers – a good sign of future recovery.

As I walked higher and got into the prairie-covered slopes, ragweed (Ambrosia) replaced marestail as the visually dominant plant in the formerly shaded areas beneath cedar trees.  The ragweed is playing the same role as the marestail – quickly filling in the open space until a more permanent plant community establishes.  That community should move in pretty quickly in cases like that shown in this photo, in which a cedar tree is surrounded by prairie.

Higher up the slope, large areas of prairie had not been encroached upon by cedars, and recovery after the fire was just as predicted – quick and easy.  The vegetation was still a little thin, but that was more of an aftereffect of the 2012 drought than of the fire.  In this image you can see the scattered cedars further downslope (such as the one featured in the previous photo).

Almost every bur oak tree I saw was vigorously resprouting from the base.  Those numerous stems should thin themselves down to three or four major trunks over the next decade or so.  Some of the branches were already 6-8 feet high, so recovery is proceeding quickly.  These oaks were growing along the edge of one of many steep draws scattered along the north side of the river.  As I was wading through 3-4 foot tall marestail, I couldn’t help but wonder if that dense growth and the presence of mountain lions in the area explained the near absence of deer browsing on the oak sprouts (Ecology of Fear).   I don’t know if the deer felt it, but I sure had moments of discomfort, knowing that if a lion was hiding in the weeds nearby, the steep slopes and thick vegetation would make escape nearly impossible.  It made my hike a little more exciting, but I didn’t stay down in those draws very long…

I was surprised and pleased to see numerous examples of large sedge patches growing under the marestail forest, especially on the steeper portions of draws.  I don’t remember seeing many sedges last year, so either I missed them or they are expanding rapidly.  Either way, they will sure help stabilize those slopes as other plants move in to join them, and they’ll also help carry fire when we restart fire management of the area.

High on the slopes, where ponderosa pine and eastern redcedar had dominated just a few years ago, the scenery was every bit as spectacular as it had been before the fire – just different.  Marestail was abundant here too, but there was quite a bit of grass and wildflower cover as well, and several shrub species were flourishing, including smooth and skunkbush sumac, chokecherry, snowberry and others.  Despite the density of scorched tree trunks, the overall feel of the slopes was not one of death and destruction, but rather of abundant life.

Even the very steep erodible slopes at the very edge of the ridge top were full of previously established perennial wildflowers and shrubs, as well as colonizing annuals.