| Description: |
The only extensive alvar in the site district. Contains a rich and diverse flora supporting many provincially and regionally significant species. The vegetation is a complex mosaic of alvar, and mixed and coniferous forest. The alvar vegetation consists of areas of bare exposed rock flats with plants generally occurring in minimal soil restricted to cracks and small low pockets. The mixed and coniferous forest associations are dominated by Cedar, White Spruce, Balsam Fir, and Poplar. Occasional small wetlands are to be found and most relate to present or past beaver activity. [White 1992]
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| Vegetation: |
The Burnt Lands vegetation is characterized by open, young to medium aged coniferous forests of spruce, fir, cedar and pine, with aspen, birch and other deciduous tree species being locally important. Vast natural meadows - alvars - dominate the northern portion of the study area and occur as small openings throughout. While the Burnt Lands is surrounded by active agricultural land, none remains within the study area; disturbed lands are represented by residential and light industrial developments. Little of this upland plateau area is wetland and those wetland areas that are found here tend to be ephemeral and irregular in occurrence.
The vegetation of the Burnt Lands is complex, comprised of over a dozen major elements that tend to be early successional and to blend one into another. The study area is situated within the Lakes Simcoe-Rideau Site Region (no. 6) of Hills (1959), which is typified by Beech, Sugar Maple and Hemlock on normal, fresh sites, and with oak and hickory confined to warmer, dry sites. Hemlock, Cedar, Yellow Birch and White Spruce are found in cooler, wet sites. The Burnt Lands is situated within the Region's Smith Falls Site District (no. 11), which is characterized by extensive limestone plains and a largely calcareous soil parent material. The alvars here reflect the drier, warmer extreme of rock-based vegetation in the Smith Falls District. As the most extensive alvars east of the Frontenac Axis (Catling et al., 1975), the study area also reflects the best example of this habitat in the District. [Brunton 1986]
The alvar grassland meadows here are extensive, and dominated by a variety of associations. Some of the dominant alvar meadow species include Carex richardsonii, Poa compressa, Danthonia spicata and Senecio paupercula (Brunton, 1986). Although numerous prairie species are present here, it is not considered to be prairie. [Bakowsky 1993]
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| Landform: |
The Burnt Lands are underlain by geological 'softer' paleozoic bedrock known as Ottawa formation limestone (Renaud 1979, Freeman 1979). It results from millions of years of shallow marine deposits during the Black River-Trenton epoch (Wilson 1956). There is only this one type of bedrock known in the study area proper, although a small outcrop of older, less calcareous Nepean and March sandstones is found along Carroll Road on the eastern margin of the Burnt Lands (Renaud 1979).
The Burnt Lands is topographically very homogenous, consisting of a relatively flat bedrock plateau centered on the DND property along Hwy 44 and sloping away gently to the west, north and south. A bedrock fault runs in a northwest-southeast direction along the eastern edge of the area and results in a quick drop in elevation there.
The landscape consists of a scoured bedrock plateau that is thinly covered in up to 2 m of glacio-fluvial sand and gravel, with relatively small organic deposits in bedrock depressions (Yeager and Daley 1974). The largest portion of the study area is typified by bare to shallowly buried bedrock.
Drainage in the Burnt Lands is disturbed and often ephemeral. The permeable and fractured bedrock allows much of the available water to seep away. The virtual absence of soil in much of the study area offers little reservoir capacity. The few creek systems (entering Cody Creek to the northeast, Blakeney Creek to the northwest and an un-named creek running towards Appleton to the southwest) are little more than loosely connected wet meadows, Cedar swamps and shallow beaver ponds. Indeed, during the exceptionally dry summer of 1985 virtually all of these drainage routes were without standing water. [Brunton 1986]
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| Representation: |
Designated as a provincially significant ANSI. This site has some similarities with the regionally significant Panmure Alvar, however, the present site stands in a class by itself in terms of condition, extent, alvar development, and significant species and features. [White 1992]
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| Management Agency: |
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| Id | Citation |
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9805
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Bakowsky, W.D. 1993. A Review and Assessment of Prairie, Oak Savannah and Woodland in Site Regions 7 and 6 (Southern Region). DRAFT. Report prepared by Gore and Storrie Ltd. for Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Southern Region, Aurora.
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3748
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Belcher, J.W., P.A. Keddy and P.M. Catling. 1992. Alvar vegetation in Canada: a multivariate description at two scales. Canadian Journal of Botany 70:1279-1291.
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77824
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Brownell, V.R., and J.L. Riley. 2000. The Alvars of Ontario: Significant Alvar Natural Areas in the Ontario Great Lakes Region. Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Don Mills, Ontario. 269 pp.
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3839
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Brunton, D.F. 1986. A Life Science Inventory of The Burnt Lands, Lanark County/Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, Ontario. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Carleton Place. OFER 8604. 118 pp.
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12359
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Catling, P.M. and V.R. Brownell. 1995. A review of the alvars of the Great Lakes region: Distribution, floristic composition, biogeography, and protection. Canadian Field-Naturalist 109(2): 143-171.
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78986
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Catling, Paul M., Adrianne Sinclair and Don Cuddy. 2001. Vascular Plants of a Successional Alvar Burn 100 Days After A Severe Fire and Their Mechanisms of Re-establishment. The Canadian Field Naturalist, April-June vol. 115, no. 2, pp. 214-222.
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55727
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Cuddy, D., S. Thompson and J. Jalava. 1996/1997. Burntlands Alvar (including Ramsay Alvar). International Alvar Initiative Forms, on file, Natural Heritage Information Centre, Peterborough.
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4592
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White, D.J. 1979. Burnt Lands Alvar. Trail and Landscape 13: 34-38.
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4597
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White, D.J. 1992. Life Science Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest in Site District 6-11: A Review and Assessment of Significant Natural Areas. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Eastern Region, Kemptville.
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