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Glossary Title
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Callipers
Instruments used to measure the diameter and/or thickness of trees or logs.

Cambium
A layer of growing tissue between the xylem and phloem or the inner bark and the wood of a tree.

Canopy
The continuous cover of branches and foliage formed collectively by the crowns of adjacent trees.

Canopy Closure
The progressive reduction of space between crowns as they spread laterally, increasing canopy cover.

Canopy Density
The amount of foliar cover, combining the extent of canopy closure and crown density.

Capillary Action
The tendency of water to move in fine spaces because of the molecular attraction between the water molecules and the vessel walls.

Cellulose
A carbohydrate (CHO) that forms the walls of plant c ells and makes up the bulk of the wood in trees.

Check
Stagnation of tree or stand growth.

Clay
A soil component, consisting of particles smaller than 0.002 mm in diameter; or a soil containing more than 40% clay, less than 45% sand and less than 40% silt.

Cleaning
see Release Cutting.

Clearcut
noun: An area of forest land from which all merchantable trees have recently been harvested.
adjective: The harvesting of all merchantable trees from an area of forest land.

Clearcutting
A method of harvesting trees where all standing trees are removed in one operation. Clearcutting is most often used with species like jack pine that require full sunlight to regenerate successfully. An even-aged forest results.

Clearcutting Method
A method of regenerating an even-aged forest stand in which new seedlings become established in fully exposed micro environments after removal of most or all of the existing trees. Regeneration can originate naturally or artificially. Clearcutting may be done in blocks, strips, or patches.

Climax Ecosystem
The serni-permanent culminating stage of succession which continues to occupy an area unless there are significant changes in the environment.

Codominant Crown Class
see Crown Class: codominant

Commercial Thinning
see Thinning: commercial

Competition Control
A treatment designed to reduce the competitive effect of undesirable vegetation threatening the success of regeneration.

Composition
The proportion of each tree species in a stand expressed as a percentage of either the total number, basal area, or volume of all tree species in the stand.

Cone Rake
A device for collecting cones from a standing tree; it is lowered, usually from a helicopter, over the crown of a tree. Cones or cone bearing branches are removed and retrieved by the machine.

Conical
Cone-shaped tree form resulting when the terminal bud grows much more quickly than the lateral branches.

Conifer
A tree belonging to the order Coniferales, which is usually evergreen, true cone bearing, and with needles, awl, or scale-like leaves, such as pine, spruces firs, and cedars, often referred to as ''sol'twoods".

Consensus
Unanimous agreement among members of a group.

Conservation
The wise management of renewable resources in su( h a way as to ensure their continuing quality and availability to current and future operations.

Consumer
A mltritional grouping in the food chain of an ecosystem composed of heterotrophic organisms (organisms that derive nourishment from outside themselves), chiefly animals, which ingest other organisms or particulate organic matter.

Container Seedling
see Seedling

Controlled Burning
see Prescribed Burning

Coppice
Natural regeneration originating from stump sprouts or root suckers.

Coppice Method
A method of regenerating a forest stand in which the cut trees produce sprouts or suckers.

Coppice-With-Standards Method
A method of regenerating a forest stand by coppicing where selected trees, which may be from seed, are left to grow to larger in size than the coppice beneath them.

Corridor Planting
see Line Planting

Cover Crop
A suitable herbaceous crop, particularly Leguminosae but also Cruciferae and Gramineae, grown to increase the fertility of soil; it is dug or ploughed in while succulent, with or without supplementary fertilisers.

Crop Planning
The process of custom designing the density of regeneration and the timing and intensity of stand-tending treatments to achieve site- and species-specific stand management objectives as well as to attain forest-level management objectives.

Crop Tree
A tree identified to be grown until the final harvest cut. Usually selected on the basis of its location with respect to other trees, its quality, rate of growth, species, and straightness.

Crown
(Relating to a part of a tree as opposed to a type of land ownership.) The upper part of a tree or other woody plant, carrying the main branch system and foliage.
  • crown class Trees in a forest with crowns of similar development and occupying a similar position in the canopy; the term applies to groups of trees.
  • codominant Trees with crowns forming the general level of the main canopy in even-aged groups of trees, receiving full light from above and comparatively little from the sides.
  • dominant Trees with crowns extending above the general level of the main canopy of even-aged groups of trees and receiving full light from above and partial light from the sides.
  • intermediate Trees with crowns extending into the lower portion of the main canopy of even-aged groups of trees, but shorter in height than the codominants; receiving little direct light from above and none from the sides; usually with small crowns that are crowded on the sides.
  • open grown Trees with crowns receiving full light from all sides due to the openness of the canopy.
  • suppressed Trees with crowns entirely below the general level of the canopy of even-aged groups of trees, receiving no direct light either from above or from the sides.

Crown Closure
The time at which the available crown space has become fully occupied.

Crown Closure Class
Any interval into which the range of proportions of ground area covered by the vertically projected tree crown areas of a stand is divided for classification and use.

Crown Density
The amount, compactness, or depth of foliage of a tree crown.

Crown Thinning
see Thinning: crown

Crushing
The compaction of slash and brush by machinery. In Manitoba, the chopping of slash and provision of microsites are considered important features of this treatment.

Cull
A tree or log which is rejected because of defects or because it is below required standards.

Cutting Cycle
The planned time interval between major harvesting operations in the same stand. The term is usually applied to uneven-aged stands. For example, a cutting cycle of 10 years in a hardwood stand means that every 10 years a selection harvest would be carried out in the stand.

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