Too many trees stood alone and evenly spaced. Measured old Sierra forests have most trees in tight groups of five to eleven with gaps between, so the forest now forms groups, with only about one tree in seven standing alone, and pines root a little more often in the cracks and benches of granite slopes. New worlds only.
Each tree’s needles and leaves are a little lighter or darker, warmer or cooler than its neighbors’, so a stand no longer looks copied. The far forest used to stop 2 km out and now reaches 4 km at about the same cost, and past that, forested ground draws as dark crowns instead of bare rock.
