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What is Cross Timber?
The term “Cross Timbers” refers to an ecological region of woodland and forest vegetation in central and eastern Oklahoma. Cross Timbers forests occur on deep, coarse-textured soils derived from sandstone, whereas fine-textured soils derived from shale and limestone support woodland and grassland vegetation.
What is the significance of the Cross Timbers?
Indeed, even today, the Cross Timbers represent a stark transition zone, marking the westernmost limit of the Eastern deciduous forests, and the eastern border of the Great Western Plains.
What animals are in the Cross Timbers?
A variety of cherished wildlife, including coyotes, falcons, quail, wild turkeys, bobcats, and white-tailed deer, pepper the Texas portion of the ecosystem and find habitat within the concentrated oak forests and wispy native bluestem grasses.
What are the important economic activities in the Cross Timbers?
The Cross Timbers Mostly agricultural; peanuts, fruits, and vegetables are main crops grown here. Dairying and raising livestock are other important agricultural activities. Arlington and Denton are major cities in this region.
What are the Cross Timbers in Texas?
The Cross Timbers of Texas is two long and narrow strips of forest region that extend parallel to each other from Oklahoma southward to Central Texas between the ninety-sixth and ninety-ninth meridians and form a marked contrast to the prairies of the state.
What are the Cross Timbers in Oklahoma?
The woodlands of central Oklahoma are the transition from our eastern forests to the western prairies. These woodlands, known as the Cross Timbers, are a mosaic of thick forest, open woodland, and prairie patches. Of Oklahoma’s 12.7 million acres of forest land, about 4 million acres are in the Cross Timbers.
What is Post Oak Savannah?
The Post Oak Savannah is a transition zone between the blackland prairies to the west and the Pineywoods to the east. This ecosystem is part of a historic oak belt, which travels south from Canada towards Central America. Few true examples of old-growth Post Oak Savannah in Texas still exist today.
How did the Cross Timbers help create an East West Division of Oklahoma?
It was like struggling through forests of cast iron.” In the 19th century as today, the Cross Timbers mark the dividing line between eastern forests and the grassland of the southern plains. They also served as a natural dividing line separating the Plains Indians to the west from tribes to the east.
What are timbered areas?
covered with growing trees; wooded: timbered acres.
Why are the Cross Timbers woodlands so important?
Mature Cross Timbers woodlands provide cover for white-tailed deer and are used by other animals such as woodpeckers and raccoons, so not all of the area should be thinned. Small openings can be created throughout a property to make more usable space for white-tailed deer and other animals.
What are the Texas ecoregions?
Generally, Texas is divided into 10 natural regions or ecoregions: the Piney Woods, the Gulf Prairies and marshes, the Post Oak Savanah, the Blackland Prairies, the Cross Timbers, the South Texas Plains, the Edwards Plateau, the Rolling Plains, the High Plains, and the Trans-Pecos.
What is Cross Timbers ecoregion?
The Cross-Timbers Savanna-Woodland ecoregion covers a long latitudinal extent from Texas north through eastern Oklahoma and a small portion of eastern Kansas. To the south, this ecoregion borders the Edwards Plateau Savanna ecoregion, and to the west lies the Central-Southern US Mixed Grasslands.
Where did the West Cross Timbers come from?
Some exposed surface formations in the western part of the West Cross Timbers date from the 300-million-year-old Pennsylvanian Period. Soils of the East and West Cross Timbers were developed on sandy Cretaceous Woodbine and Trinity strata.
What kind of trees are in the Cross Timbers forest?
In fact, the Cross Timbers is a mosaic of forest, woodland, and prairie. Nevertheless, the most important tree species in the Cross Timbers are post oak and blackjack.
How big is the Cross Timbers forest in Wisconsin?
The short, stout oaks that grow in the Cross Timbers were not usable as timber and those that were not cleared for farmland constitute one of the least disturbed forest types in the eastern United States (MADISON), with some 890,000 acres (3,600 km 2) of old-growth forest scattered throughout the region.
Where can you find Cross Timbers in Oklahoma?
CROSS TIMBERS. The term “Cross Timbers” refers to an ecological region of woodland and forest vegetation in central and eastern Oklahoma. Although Cross Timbers also occur in Kansas and Texas, over half of the estimated 4.8 million hectares of that region are found in Oklahoma, making it the state’s most abundant woody vegetation type.