What are the Cross Timbers and prairies?
The Cross Timbers: The Ancient Forest at America’s Crossroads
- An example of the Cross Timbers’ unique, irregularly shaped tree structure.
- Cross Timbers landscapes are mosaics that include both forest and the surrounding prairies, which make up much of what people believe the landscape of Oklahoma to look like.
What is Cross Timbers?
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.
Why is it called the Cross Timbers and prairies?
Early travelers through north Texas coined the name “Cross Timbers” by their repeated crossings of these timbered areas that proved to be a barrier to their travel on the open prairies to the east and west.
Where is Cross Timbers?
The term Cross Timbers, also known as Ecoregion 29, Central Oklahoma/Texas Plains, is used to describe a strip of land in the United States that runs from southeastern Kansas across Central Oklahoma to Central Texas.
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 is the climate of the Cross Timbers ecoregion?
Lying largely west of this line, the ecoregion is primarily classified as subhumid warm temperate with hot summers and relatively mild winters. Some classifications consider the climate subtropical.
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 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.
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 kind of animals are in the Cross Timbers?
What is the climate of the oak woods & Prairies?
The climate of the oak-woodlands is Mediterranean, with precipitation falling primarily between October and May, mostly as rain. The dry season averages 6 months but may range from 2 to 11 months. Precipitation in the oak-woodlands decreases from north to south and increases with elevation.
What is the vegetation of the North Central Plains?
The North Central Plains is an area of rolling plains often covered by small oak trees, mesquite, brush, and scattered grasses.
Where are the Cross Timbers and prairies in Texas?
The Cross Timbers and Prairies Ecological Region of Texas encompasses approximately 26,000 square miles in north and central Texas and is the primary ecological region of Northcentral Texas.
What was the vegetation like in the Cross Timbers?
As settlers traveled into the area from the east, they passed through the lush, green Blackland Prairies, which were covered with wildflowers, native tall grasses and dotted with trees along rivers. The Cross Timbers area featured two distinct belts of densely-wooded Post Oak/Blackjack Oak forests.
What are the counties in the Cross Timbers region?
Cross Timbers and Prairies Ecological Region. Counties found in the sub-region include parts of Somervell, Erath, Hamilton, Comanche, Brown, Mills, Bosque, Hill, and McLennan counties. Most of this region is underlain by various limestone formations.
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.