Black Oak Savanna
Toronto's High Park hosts several tracts of Black oak savanna, a continetally-rare ecosystem. Here the forest cover of the Carolininian forest zone is disrupted by well-drained and drought-prone sands and gravels. A grassland develops, studded with black and white oaks, which is fire-prone in spring. The fires tend not to damage the slow-growing oaks, whose taproots can reach the groundwater, but they inhibit the faster-growing maple and beeches which would otherwise take the light. Filmed 23 Oct 2020.