Mountains+JB

Los Angles Against the Mountains I - Jessica Bruce

McPhee starts the article off with a full description of evergreen oaks, bigcone douglas furs, knobcone, coultier pine. I find his description so intense for such a short article. It is almost to much information in such a small space, an information overload. I found myself skipping sentences within the article because I knew I was just going to get slammed with more facts.

The most memorable part of the article was McPhees explanation and description of chaparral.

"Fire nourishes and rejuvenates the plants. There are seeds that fall into the soil, stay there indefinitely, and will not germinate except in the aftermath of fire. There are basal buds that sprout only after fire. Droughts are so long, rains so brief, that dead bits of wood and leaves scarcely decay. Instead, they accumulate, thicken, until the plant community is all but strangling in its own duff. The nutrients in the dead material are being withheld from the soil. When fire comes, it puts the nutrients back in the ground. It clears the terrain for fresh growth. When chaparral has not been burned for thirty years, about half the thicket will be dry dead stuff—twenty-five thousand tons of it in one square mile."

I never thought I would become so interested in chaparral. I find it fascinating how McPhee can make someone like me who has little interest in enviromental information want to know more about something like chaparral. This paragraph proves how influential McPhee is as a writer and how he can impact his audience. McPhees description makes me feel sad for the chaparral at first but then I realize how it is only the beginning of new life.

"The fire wind. The devil wind. In Los Angeles, it is known as Santa Ana. When chamise and other chaparral plants sense the presence of Santa Ana winds, their level of moisture drops, and they become even more flammable than they were before. The Santa Anas bring what has been described as “instant critical fire weather.”

McPhee has such a talent when it comes to bridging the connections with information within his articles. The article makes you realize how easy like and death happen within the forests and how we can be large contributers and intruders into the nature circle of life.