News Medical: Why Echium Seed Oil Is Emerging as a Potential Plant-Based Alternative to Fish Oil Echium seed oil is a plant-derived source of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, including stearidonic acid, that may support skin barrier function, lipid metabolism, and inflammatory balance. Current ... Why Echium Seed Oil Is Emerging as a Potential Plant-Based Alternative to Fish Oil Interior Alaskan forests have only six native tree species: white spruce, black spruce, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, larch (tamarack) and paper birch.

Understanding the Context

Northern Canadian forests have all of those, plus jack pine, balsam fir and lodgepole pine. Since northern Canada and interior Alaska share the same grueling climate and extremes of daylength, why are the Canadian tree species absent from ... A tree's age can be easily determined by counting its growth rings, as any Boy or Girl Scout knows. Annually, the tree adds new layers of wood which thicken during the growing season and thin during the winter.

Key Insights

These annual growth rings are easily discernible (and countable) in cross-sections of the tree's trunk. In good growing years, when sunlight and rainfall are plentiful, the growth rings ... I eventually found a tree with a spiral lightning mark and it followed the spiral grain exactly. One tree, of course, proves nothing. "But why should the tree spiral?

Final Thoughts

More speculation here: Foliage tends to be thicker on the south side of the tree because of better sunlight. The most plentiful moose food in the state — and probably Alaska’s most numerous tree — is the feltleaf willow, which was once called the Alaska willow. As its name implies, the feltleaf sprouts canoe-shaped green leaves that feel fuzzy on the underside. Knowing that, forest managers might be able to anticipate an outbreak and plan tree harvests ahead of the beetles or try preventative measures that might work on small outbreaks, such as tree thinning, pruning, setting out hormone traps for beetles, and getting rid of piles of logs that attract beetles.