A year ago, 200 acres burned in the Potato Hill area along Highway 20 in Oregon. A couple of weeks ago I drove through the area and went up a dirt road to Potato Hill itself. Many of the trees had been removed. Perhaps they had been salvaged. Others had been cut down that had been considered unsafe. I did find Lodgepole Pine. I thought that perhaps the fire might have some benefits for that tree because I had understood it had serotinous cones. But after doing research I found I was wrong. At least in Oregon.
“That fire opens the cones of lodgepole pines by heating the resin that holds the cones together, spilling the seeds- a condition known as serotiny, is well known. However, serotinous cones are not at all universal. Trees in the Sierra Nevada of California do not produce serotinous cones, and in Oregon the characteristic is uncommon. Where serotinous cones occur most often is in the Rocky Mountains, where resides the subspecies Pinus contorta latifolia.” https://www.wildlandnw.net/lodgepole-pine/
The image of the single tree above was created with the Pentax 645N and 75mm 2.8 Lens. I used Ilford SFX 200 and developed the film with Rodinal (1:50) for 10 minutes @20C. The other images I used the same camera but with Fomopan 400 developed in Rodinal (1:50) for 11 minutes @20C.
Steven Lawrence Pictures 