Ternu Heath
The vast Ternu Heath is underexplored and underexploited. It is an inhospitable area of scrubby woodland, pongs and bogs of all sizes, and fire-scarred areas hundred of acres in extent.
The Ternu Heath is covered by an uneven patchwork of stunted scabby scrub oaks and twisted pitch pines that seldom reach ten feet in height, useless as timber and of limited use to charcoalers. Shrubs include a few varieties of blueberry, heather , and hardy azalea. The sandy soil's drier stretches are carpeted with tough bearberry, while pond shores and bogs support cranberry and wintergreen.
Upland areas exposed to the prevailing west wind are dry even after the frequent early morning fogs. These areas are subject to and reliant upon fire; the pitch pines are highly flammable and their cones do not even open until they have been subjected to a wildfire. Fires spread rapidly, fanned by the omnipresent winds and limited only by the frequent bogs, ponds, and minor waterways that crisscross the heath.
Thousands of small ponds dot the landscape, some transformed over the years into bogs. The sheltered lowland areas are humid and cool and support a wide variety of hanging and ground-mosses, carnivorous plants, and fungi. Trees seldom grow tall in the thing, infertile soil, and many areas are effectively impassable due to rotting fallen logs. Pockets of richer acid soils support white cedar, where hunters know to seek deer in the winter. There is incredible diversity in these areas and some apothecaries and hired herbalists endure great hardship and privation to acquire the treasures growing here.
The heath is home to foxes, minks, and other small mammals. THere are several species of turtles and snakes, especially in the dry uplands, but only the Heath Adder is poisonous. Frogs and salamanders are relatively few, their fertility diminished by the acid waters of the bogs, and their numbers checked by constant predation from herons, turtles, snakes, and almost anything else that can catch them. The eagle is the king of the birds, a large realm that includes scores of migratory songbirds, wading birds, gamebirds, and shorebirds.
Heathside settlements acquire much of their fuel from cutting and drying peat from the older bogs.
The Ternu Heath is covered by an uneven patchwork of stunted scabby scrub oaks and twisted pitch pines that seldom reach ten feet in height, useless as timber and of limited use to charcoalers. Shrubs include a few varieties of blueberry, heather , and hardy azalea. The sandy soil's drier stretches are carpeted with tough bearberry, while pond shores and bogs support cranberry and wintergreen.
Upland areas exposed to the prevailing west wind are dry even after the frequent early morning fogs. These areas are subject to and reliant upon fire; the pitch pines are highly flammable and their cones do not even open until they have been subjected to a wildfire. Fires spread rapidly, fanned by the omnipresent winds and limited only by the frequent bogs, ponds, and minor waterways that crisscross the heath.
Thousands of small ponds dot the landscape, some transformed over the years into bogs. The sheltered lowland areas are humid and cool and support a wide variety of hanging and ground-mosses, carnivorous plants, and fungi. Trees seldom grow tall in the thing, infertile soil, and many areas are effectively impassable due to rotting fallen logs. Pockets of richer acid soils support white cedar, where hunters know to seek deer in the winter. There is incredible diversity in these areas and some apothecaries and hired herbalists endure great hardship and privation to acquire the treasures growing here.
The heath is home to foxes, minks, and other small mammals. THere are several species of turtles and snakes, especially in the dry uplands, but only the Heath Adder is poisonous. Frogs and salamanders are relatively few, their fertility diminished by the acid waters of the bogs, and their numbers checked by constant predation from herons, turtles, snakes, and almost anything else that can catch them. The eagle is the king of the birds, a large realm that includes scores of migratory songbirds, wading birds, gamebirds, and shorebirds.
Heathside settlements acquire much of their fuel from cutting and drying peat from the older bogs.
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