C.m. Davis Readings in the Geography of Michigan, 1964

MICHIGAN'S VEGETATION

Michigan was, for the virtually function, forested prior to European settlement.  The map beneath shows major vegetation assemblages for North America, and illustrates that Michigan's forests were primarily of the "mixed" type---that is, role broadleaf trees and part conifers.

Click hither for full size prototype (333 KB)

Source:  Unknown

Actually, when examined on a finer scale, Michigan's forests can be divided into two major groupings: the deciduous forests (oaks, hickories, maples, beech) to the south, and mixed forests (pines, spruces, firs, beech, maples, oaks, aspen) to the n.  The map below shows the general location of the boundary between these ii forest provinces--called the floristic "tension zone".

Climate effects on forest patterns
Sure patterns in the present composition of forests in the Lower Peninsula announced to exist responses to climatic gradients that extend both south to n and east to w across the land. Moving s to north through the Lower Peninsula, one notices an increase in the number of evergreen (conifer) species. These species (white spruce, balsam fir, jack pine) are boreal in distribution just extend south into northern Michigan on upland sites where they are usually only minor associates of other native hardwoods (though jack pine occurs extensively on sandy uplands). Apparently sensitive to warm, dry summers and neutral or basic soils, and unable to compete with more than temperate-climate associates, they are limited primarily to the northern Lower Peninsula--north of a line from Bay Metropolis to Muskegon (the tension zone)--and to the Upper Peninsula, where cooler summers and lower evaporation are typical, along with the acidic, sandy soils on which these copse are most competitive. Warmer summer weather with higher evaporation rates seem to restrict their occurrence in southern Michigan.

Soil and topography effects on woods patterns
Probably no environmental factors account for more differences in forest composition than do soil texture and topographic position. Both of these factors strongly influence what corporeality of almanac atmospheric precipitation will really exist available for plant growth on a given site and thus put limits on which plants will be competitive there. Fibroid, sandy soils are porous, have a low water-property capacity, are often acidic, and ordinarily back up trees such as oaks and hickories--or in northern Michigan, jack and red pine with a shrub layer of blueberries. Soils of intermediate texture (loams) commonly support a broad variety of species, merely shade-tolerant hardwoods such as beech and saccharide maple often dominate these sites. In the northern Lower Peninsula, hemlock and yellow birch may prevail along with beech and maple, and in the western Upper Peninsula, where in that location are no beeches, red oak and basswood are important also. Heavy, dirt-rich soils with poor internal drainage may support communities of red or silver maple, ash, elm, and cerise oak.
The circuitous glacial history of the state left a jumbled array of sediments that became soil, and since the soil influenced the composition of both the earliest and present forests, much of the patchwork of local wood patterns can be traced straight back to the state's glacial heritage. Topography influences wood composition in that information technology is 1 of the factors that determines how far below-or above-footing the h2o tabular array will be. The woodlands that occupy low, boggy sites throughout the country are among the most hit examples of this control. Bog vegetation generally exists where the water table is at or slightly above the surface much of the year and where that h2o is poor in minerals. Common cold, poorly aerated soils discourage thorough breakdown of organic affair, and therefore encourage the development of acidic peat deposits. Such sites are heavily dominated past Canadian (boreal) elements throughout Michigan--spruce, fir, larch, leatherleaf, blueberry--as these are the only plants that can be competitive on acidic, common cold sites.
The distribution of remnants of tall-grass prairie, found largely in southwestern lower Michigan, is likewise partly related to topography. Vestiges of an earlier prairie advanced into that part of the state from Illinois and Indiana during a menstruum of warmer, drier climate, and these prairies and oak openings persisted on scattered patches of level or nearly level country of medium-or-better drainage until European settlement. Presumable, the low relief of these sites exposed them to a higher wind and burn hazard. Once started past natural or human causes, fires could sweep across the flat terrain more hands than they could on the bordering hillier landscape, resulting in impairment to the invading woody vegetation and preserving the isolated prairie stands long after their quondam connection with the continuous prairie in Illinois and Indiana had been closed off by reinvading forests.

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For the map beneath, what woods types are represented by blue and green?  Yellow is tallgrass prairie, ruby-red is mid-grass prairie, and tan is shortgrass prairie.

The image beneath is an interesting satellite composite of the pct of forest cover in the Great Lakes region.  It shows nicely the large amount of forested state in the Upwards, and the abrupt change from forest to grassland in NW Minnesota.

Source:  Unknown

The map below is a choropleth representation of forest cover.

Source:  Unknown

Source:  Image Courtesy of Randy Schaetzl, Professor of Geography - Michigan State University

1 mode to evaluate the forest and vegetation resource of the state is to examine what they were like prior to European settlement.  The series of maps below will give you an thought as to the patterns of vegetation in Michigan in the early 1800's.  They start out more full general, and become more detailed father down the page.

Source:  Unknown

Michigan lies largely inside the northern hardwood woods region, with areas of the primal hardwood region extending upwards into the southeastern part of the state, and with pines, aspen and swamp conifers occupying large areas in the northern part. Lines betwixt these broad forest classifications are oftentimes irregular, and within each are many different types, phases, and temporary conditions, overlapping and changing with local variations of climate, soil, and moisture.
Presettlement woods types have generally been described as primarily deciduous (hardwood) with oak, maple and beech in the southern lower peninsula, changing to mixed deciduous/coniferous species groups including maple, birch, hemlock, and pine further north. In reality, forest cover weather were much more than complex. The southern lower peninsula was dominated by large expanses of oaks where soils were drier, portions of savanna in the southwest, and maples, elm, and ash in wetter soils near the Saginaw Valley. Settlement removed the majority of mature hardwood forests throughout the south. Woodlots, seldom larger than 100 acres adjacent to farmland, continue to exist fractured into smaller parcels near suburban areas.
The Upper Peninsula is dominated by northern hardwood forests which occupy the amend upland soils and which too occur in poorer quality on lighter soils. These stands include principally sugar maple, elm, basswood, and yellowish birch, with beech present in the eastward one-half of the peninsula, and with hemlock and white pine often in mixture. The large areas of sandy plains found in many parts of the peninsula mostly back up pines. Spruce, balsam, cedar, and tamarack (larch), the swamp conifers, more often than not occupy the poorly drained sites, while all-encompassing areas of aspen occur throughout, principally on burned-over lands.
In the Lower Peninsula northern hardwoods occupy the extreme northern part, extending in a broad band along the northwest side and into the central and southwestern sections. Yellow birch, hemlock, and white pine occur with less frequency or are entirely absent-minded in these stands below the center of the state. Pine occurs principally in the wide sand plains and hills region in the northward primal and northeast parts. Aspen covers extensive areas of old burns throughout the north half of the Lower Peninsula, while the swamp conifers occupy the poorly drained and wet sites.
The key hardwoods in general occupy the southeast part of the Lower Peninsula and are characterized by the oaks and hickories on the dry hilly soils, and past such species as sycamore, cottonwood, and silverish maple on the heavier soils and lesser lands.

    Human intervention, such as harvesting, fire and clearing for evolution, has profoundly affected the composition of Michigan's woods base of operations. While the area of forest coverage has generally rebounded since the timber boom period of the last century, few regions of the Land contain the same mixture of tree species that existed prior to settlement.

This "placemat" map was produced by the Michigan Geographic Alliance and the Science/Mathematics/Technology Center, Central Michigan University, with funding from the U.S. Dept. of Education. For further information email Wayne.E.Kiefer@cmich.edu

Source: Atlas of Michigan, ed. Lawrence M. Sommers, 1977.

How do we know so much near presettlement vegetation patterns?  Our information come form the US Public State Surveyors' records and field notes.  Recall that nigh of the United States due west of the original 13 Colonies was surveyed under the edicts of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787. These laws provided for the division of unincorporated federal territory into vi-by-six mile foursquare townships which were further subdivided into 36 sections each one square mile. In assaying federal lands, contracted surveyors were also instructed to record things like the condition of the land, its potential for agriculture, etc. Most importantly for united states of america, however, they also were required to annotation the species and diameters of two or 4 trees at each department corner (i.east., 8-16 per square mile), equally well equally major trees that fell on the section lines proper (commonly five-15 per squate mile section). That's a lot of trees! And that's a lot of paleo-vegetation information that we can use today to reconstruct past forests! These General State Part (GLO) athenaeum--aside from their valuable historical accounts and descriptions--take thus served as an important information source for the reconstructing presettlement vegetation and ecology in Michigan and elsewhere in the eastern United states of america.

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Michigan's current vegetation has been dramatically changed by its inhabitants, as the map beneath shows.

This "placemat" map was produced by the Michigan Geographic Alliance and the Science/Mathematics/Technology Heart, Central Michigan University, with funding from the U.S. Dept. of Instruction. For further data email Wayne.Eastward.Kiefer@cmich.edu

LIST OF TREE SPECIES FOUND IN MICHIGAN

1.  Oak-Savanna Customs
Bur oak    Quercus macrocarpa
Black oak    Quercus velutina
Northern pivot oak    Quercus ellipsoidalis

two.  Oak-Hickory Community
White oak    Quercus alba
Black oak    Quercus velutina
Red oak    Quercus rubra
Pignut hickory    Carya glabra
Shagbark hickory    Carya ovata
Black cherry    Prunus serotina
Hop-hornbeam    Ostrya virginiana
White ash    Fraxinus americana
Witch-hazel    Hamamelis virginiana
Featherlike serviceberry    Amelanchier arborea
Flowering dogwood    Cornus florida
Eastern redcedar    Iuniperus virginiana
Chinkapin oak    Quercus muehlenbergii
Dwarf chinkapin oak    Quercus prinoides
American anecdote    Castanea dentata
Dwarf hackberry    Celtis tenuifolia

iii.  Beech-Sugar Maple Community
Beech    Fagus grandifolia
Sugar maple    Acer saccharum
Scarlet oak    Quercus rubra
Basswood    Tilia americana
White ash    Fraxinus americana
Blackness walnut    Juglans nigra
Tuliptree    Liriodendron tulipifera
Bitternut hickory    Carya cordiformis
Shagbark hickory    Carya ovata
Glace elm    Ulmus rubra
Stone elm    Ulmus thomasii
Alternate-leaf dogwood    Cornus alternifolia
Blueish ash    Fraxinus quadrangulata
Featherlike serviceberry    Amelanchier arborea

4. Deciduous Swamp Community
Ruby-red maple    Acer rubrum
Black ash    Fraxinus nigra
Yellowish birch    Betula alleghaniensis
American elm    Ulmus americana
Argent maple    Acer saccharinum
Blue-beech    Carpinus caroliniana
Alternate-foliage dogwood    Cornus alternifolia
Nannyberry    Viburnum lentago
Pin oak    Quercus palustris
Swamp white oak    Quercus bicolor

5.  Pine Community
Jack pine    Pinus banksiana
Red pine    Pinus resinosa
Eastern white pine    Pinus strobus
White oak    Quercus alba
Northern pin oak    Quercus ellipsoidalis
Blackness oak    Quercus velutina
Pin reddish    Prunus pensylvanica
Cherry-red oak    Quercus coccinea

Parts of the text above have been paraphrased from C.M. Davis' Readings in the Geography of Michigan (1964).

Parts of the text on this page have been modified from L.M. Sommers' book entitled, "Michigan: A Geography".

This fabric has been compiled for educational apply only, and may not be reproduced without permission.  I re-create may exist printed for personal use.  Please contact Randall Schaetzl (soils@msu.edu) for more information or permissions.

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Source: https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/vegetation.html

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