Dominant tree species, the same on all servers/regions?

[Kaldari 53]

I live in the southwestern(ish) area of Indy, and around me it appears that the dominant tree species are cherry and lemon. Fruit trees in general will overcome the birch and pines, but cherry/lemon seem more dominant.

 

Is this the same in other areas of Indy, or other servers? Are there areas where, if left untouched, will turn to fir or pine forest, or an expanse of rose or camelia bushes?

 

 

On a related note, moss and steppe seem to eat grass equally well (I've yet to see which one wins when in direct competition)

[Yldrania 1,425]

In  my experience it varies with region. I have 8 deeds on Xan, one has a natural overflow of oak, the other Linden, and the remaining ones (all grouped up together into one complex) Chestnut. I'd assume that some trees are more rare to find - and I have yet to see a full natural fir forest but I have definitely seen natural looking Pine forests as well. 

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

I used to cut all trees and make everything desert 

 

RIP affliction 1.0

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

59 minutes ago, Yldrania said:

 - and I have yet to see a full natural fir forest

There's a pretty large one 20 minutes down the road from me on Xanadu.

They're horrible, you're left with no visibility... for 1000's of tiles.

But you're right about trees being naturally regional, and those are the dominant ones in a given area.

 

[Corsan 199]

Depends on the area of the map you're in.

Certain areas seem to have a high amount of certain trees. My area is highly olive trees, but if you can manage to pass through them (Be able to see), it turns into a Linden forest, and then a massive cedar forest, and quite a ways travel...it turns into pines mostly. These all of course have an occasional interspersed tree of another type...either from someone's attempts to get other stuff to grow, or from server creation's slight randomness.

I've been thinning out the olive population down here...which is allowing other things to grow in. (Also allowing sight-lines...thank goodness.)

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

To this day, the dominant tree species near my old home on release is maple.

 

It used to be pine.

 

There was a series of mass clear cuts....

 

Now it's beautiful maple!

[Fraeya 341]

7 minutes ago, Etherdrifter said:

To this day, the dominant tree species near my old home on release is maple.

 

It used to be pine.

 

There was a series of mass clear cuts....

 

Now it's beautiful maple!

And you had nothing to do with that I guess? Damn tree hugger....

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

10 hours ago, Fraeya said:

And you had nothing to do with that I guess? Damn tree hugger....

Heh, even I couldn't clear cut over 2000 trees alone.

 

Took a community of folks working together to make a beautiful forest; that was then largely destroyed by greedy farmers.

[Mordraug 2,542]

1 hour ago, Etherdrifter said:

Heh, even I couldn't clear cut over 2000 trees alone.

 

Took a community of folks working together to make a beautiful forest; that was then largely destroyed by greedy farmers.

 

You shouldn't have gone there... you mean the people you "gave permission to deed there" and then demanded they only have a small shack and maples on every tile?  Tsk tsk tsk tsk.

[Cista 428]

There are 4 original timber tree species, which are birch, pine, maple and cedar. These were what people had as timber sources, so I suppose they were quite dominant when the older servers were launched. On Inde in particular, pine is the most dominant tree. 

The original fruit trees (olive, apple, lemon, cherry) are as you have noticed, faster-growing and will therefore become dominant where there has been human activity. Therefore you now see huge areas of them on Inde and on the smaller servers, regardless of original composition. (a good example is the old large Frontier deed on Inde, which was probably timber forest before settlement, but covered in fruit trees after it was disbanded)

 

Oak and Willow were always rare and as they grow so slow they will always be rare. people also used to cut down willow because of poor visibility when hunting, so on Inde willow was especially rare. I used to think that oak and willow would slowly become dominant trees because of their ability to kill other species, until I realise that does not give them any advantage as they can not spread their sprouts into existing forest. 

 

Then came the new timber tree species: linden, chestnut, walnut and fir. They were never spawned in nature, when they arrived in Wurm you could only get their sprouts (rarely) from botanising, and the value of the sprouts was quite high for years. ONLY on Xanadu are there natural forests of these species, which made Xanadu all the more mesmerising to land on for players that appreciate such things.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Cista

[Cista 428]

Btw, the OP mentioned " Fruit trees in general will overcome the birch and pine". This is true only in the sense of them having an advantage on open land left behind by settlements. No tree species however has an actual competitive edge on other species in forest that was created at server launch, or in plantations (as opposed to the ability that steppe has to kill grass anywhere that the two meet).

 

As bonus info, you can tell secondary timber forest from primary forest by the fact that secondary forest is not so dense as primary forest, because tree sprouts can only spread naturally on every other tile. But the devs typically made the original forests a little denser than that, just like settlers can make plantations that are 100% dense.  

A neighbouring fruit tree does not "count" as a tree in the sprouting process, so secondary forests with fruit trees become as dense as it gets. Bushes are the same as fruit trees.

 

On Inde (which will be approaching 10 years of age soon), these days you mostly see  primary timber forest when looking up steep mountainsides. But you can actually find original and dense timber forest on flatter areas of Inde too if you look for them. Especially in areas of Northeastern/Northwestern Inde far from the old player spawn point and far from any coastline. 

Edited March 24, 2017 by Cista

[Ayes 3,715]

I remember being on Deliverance when the server opened. From that vantage point it was clear to see that trees were spawned in clusters, covering either large or small areas between them. They were all separate from each other, not intermixed growing together.

 

Since cedars were my favorite I had to wander around quite a bit to find any of them but when I did, yea they were all together there, yet not a large amount of them. Cherry trees had their sections and then there was a very large olive forest next to them. Pine were the most common around my spot. Maybe some birch but can't remember them much since at the time I didn't care much for them either. Maybe maples were around somewhere but about as uncommon as cedars.

 

I never did like the oak or willow *tree killers* with their 3x3 death zones, so in those days I would always cut them down. Maybe even now if in a forested area I am tending to. If others plant their own I leave them alone though. Then when players settle in the whole tree ecology system is redone by them, which can be easily noted by those who were there when all the newer servers were created.

 

=Ayes=

[Kaldari 53]

Hmm, interesting stuff mentioned

 

 

On 24/03/2017 at 7:46 AM, Cista said:

Btw, the OP mentioned " Fruit trees in general will overcome the birch and pine". This is true only in the sense of them having an advantage on open land left behind by settlements. No tree species however has an actual competitive edge on other species in forest that was created at server launch, or in plantations (as opposed to the ability that steppe has to kill grass anywhere that the two meet).

I'm not so sure about this. I wiped out a lot of lemon and cherry in the pine forest surrounding Frontier, and planted more pine and birch. A few months later, and I see the lemon encroaching back into the area I had previously cleared, so it's faster growth is giving it an advantage.

Something I've long suspected from idle observation but never really properly tested, is that when a tree reaches it's shriveled state, that it becomes vulnerable to being replaced by something else. For example, I planted moss near my deed, first as a nearby source, then alongside a highway, and I've noticed that it has expanded onto tiles which I'm 99% certain had trees before

I also have a very vague memory from several years ago of reading that when switching from shriveled to young, a tree has a small chance of becoming something else

[Cista 428]

It's impossible to quite rule out what you are saying, but.... If you think about it, players have plantations everywhere. Huge areas of grapes or olives for example. On my island on Inde there are some plantations of grapes and olive that other players have left behind. They are still grapes and olives now, many years later, they don't change into something else.

If people's trees that they had carefully planted in their private plantations turned into something else, we would hear more about it. 

 

Re. moss, I can imagine it can eat into grass like steppe does. I haven't studied moss.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Cista

[Kaldari 53]

On 25/03/2017 at 4:51 PM, Cista said:

They are still grapes and olives now, many years later, they don't change into something else.

My suspicion is that if you have a plantation of grapes, one in the middle doesn't become a walnut when it goes past shriveled, but one on the edge 'might' if there's a walnut plantation next to it. So that over time, without human intervention, the boundaries of the plantations become less clearly defined as the two push against each other.

But it's not something I've ever scientifically studied

 

Out of idle interest, try planting a single tree of something different among the grapes, and see if it's still there in a few months, or if a grape has replaced it. Your isolated island would make an excellent test site

[Tristanc 570]

From my experience, a tree or bush that becomes shrivelled will regrow as the same type of plant there unless a player cuts it down or it's in the 'kill-zone' of an oak or willow.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Tristanc