Evergreen

Evergreens like these can flavor an otherwise monochrome winter scene.

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In a place like Harriman State Park, the transition as winter settles in is dramatic. Gone is the kaleidoscope of color that marks both summer and fall. Gone too are the elk, the deer and most of the birds. The river still flows but ice transforms lakes into meadows. The mantle of snow eschews diversity in favor of monochrome. Even sound seems banished from the winter landscape if you can ignore the distant highway or snowmobile.

One plant type though, rails against the homogenization of the winter—evergreens. The pines, spruces and firs, dressed in their forever green, starkly contrast against the whites and grays of winter.

Being evergreen is a plant strategy where the plants retain their leaves throughout the year in contrast to deciduous trees, such as maples and aspens, that lose their leaves each fall and spend the winter months in a mostly dormant state.

Retaining leaves year-round is an excellent strategy in more tropical climates where the two critical ingredients for growth and maintenance—sunshine and warmth—are abundantly supplied. However, the strategy seems to lose its appeal in more northern latitudes where leaves can freeze and sunshine is limited during winter months.

Yet the northernmost latitudes are covered in evergreen forests. That doesn’t appear to make sense. Soil, it seems, is what makes the difference. In the deciduous forests of the eastern states, soil is rich and deep. Deciduous trees can make their living during the warm summer months by creating a lot of leaf surfaces to capture the sunlight. Energy converted above and beyond the needs of maintenance is stored for the winter months when the tree is dormant.

In the nutrient challenged soils of the west and north, this strategy doesn’t work so well. Deciduous trees cannot convert enough energy from the sun because they are limited by soil quality. They enter winter unprepared to survive the duration.

Evergreens, on the other hand, have the perfect approach. Rather than try to get by on stored reserves, they mitigate for the poorer soil by working all winter long. With short days and branches often covered in snow, deep winter photosynthesis may be minimal but the photosynthetic season is still greatly extended.

For the species we commonly think of as evergreens—firs, pines, junipers, cedars, spruces and such, leaves are modified into needles or scales to resist freezing. These are coated with a waxy element that also protects them against the drying effects of the wind. Of course, even these leaves die and are replaced, but just not all at once.

There are another group of evergreen plants that we think of less often. These are broad-leafed evergreens. At Christmas time, we see a lot of one species, holly, but there are a number of other species as well. One local species is shiny-leaf ceanothus, a common plant in our foothills and mountains. The leaves of many of these plants are also waxy to help prevent winter dehydration and many broad-leafed evergreen plants depend upon a covering of snow to protect them from extreme cold and wind.

Evergreens certainly aren’t as showy as fall colors or summer flowers. But during the winter months, they earn their keep by splashing a little color on an otherwise black and white scene.

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Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.