Capital City Carvers

FYI: The Vice President of the club is responsible for scheduling the carving projects and, if we wish, the late winter weekend workshop. If you have any ideas for a carving program, ornament project or want to have a particular guest instructor for a weekend workshop, please let the VP or any club officer know. As a club we can't work in a vacuum and your input is vital in keeping the club vibrant and interesting. If we want to keep the club going your input is vital. This is your club after all.

Congratulations to the ribbon winners that participated in the Pensacola Interstate Fair! Nine ribbons were brought home. Alan Teskey won 2 white ribbons, Robert Christian won 1 blue and 2 white ribbons, Lance Peterson won a red ribbon and Mike Crowley won 2 blue and one red ribbon.

We had a wonderful holiday celebration on December 16. Lot of great food was brought by members and there was not much left to take home. We had the annual drawing for cash prizes that go to members that present carvings at the monthly Show & Tell. This year, our winners were Ed Baseheart, $50, Harold Lewis, $25 and Brian Barber $15. Bring in your projects for Show & Tell, fill out the card and at the next holiday party you too may win one of the prizes.

Why do evergreen conifers stay green in winter? From Barry Logan, Professor of Biology, Bowdoin College

Here in North Florida we get just a smattering of the brilliant foliage color change that oaks, maples, aspen and other deciduous trees in more northern climes exhibit. As temperatures begin to dip, broad-leafed temperate trees such as oaks and maples withdraw the green chlorophyll from their leaves. Chlorophyll is the pigment that absorbs sunlight to power photosynthesis. Trees store the hard-won minerals, chiefly nitrogen, they've invested in chlorophyll in their wood for reuse in a future growing season. Yellows, oranges and reds are left visible before the leaves drop for winter.

Evergreen conifers, the cone-bearing trees, retain their foliage year-round. Staying evergreen is not about continuing to conduct photosynthesis throughout the winter. Cold temperatures affect conifers' metabolism just as they do any other organism's. In fact, on cold wintry days, evergreen conifers perform no more photosynthesis than their leafless neighbors.

The best way to understand the benefit of evergreenness is by considering the construction costs of leaves. Needles are really just modified leaves. How do trees balance the energy it takes to grow a leaf with the energy that leaf produces via photosynthesis? In other words, how long do the leaves take to repay their construction costs and offer the tree a return on its investment?

Deciduous trees must recoup their investment in their leafy canopy in only a single growing season. In contrast, the evergreen conifers, by hanging onto their needles, grant those needles multiple growing seasons to contribute to contribute to their tree's balance sheets. Evergreens' greater leaf longevity means they can survive in environments that just don't work for their deciduous cousins. At higher latitudes and elevations, shorter and cooler growing seasons can limit photosynthetic activity. Drought can further interfere with photosynthesis. In these harsher conditions, a year may not be long enough for a leaf to produce enough energy to pay back its growth costs to the tree. This may explain why evergreen conifers dominate mountain tops and the boreal forests that stretch across high latitudes in Alaska, Canada and Northern Europe.

Evergreen needle longevity varies widely and maps onto the degree of growing season stress. Some temperate trees common to southern New England, such as white pine, retain needles for only two growing seasons. Any individual white pine needle overwinters only once, minimally meeting the definition of evergreen. Some conifers, such as larch, do not achieve even that, instead shedding their entire crown of needles each autumn in a luminously golden display that can be a highlight of the autumn foliage splendor where they are found. In contrast, bristlecone pines, inhabitants of high elevations in the arid Southwest, hang onto individual needles for almost 50 years. It may take that long for bristlecone pine needles to [continued]