Survival of Prolonged Burial by Subalpine Forest Understory Plants

The capacity of forest understory plants for surviving burial was examined using plants buried by a 12to 18-cm layer of volcanic tephra in May 1980 in an old-growth subalpine forest NE of Mount St. Helens, Washington. Plant density and cover were measured in 1983 on 50 1-M2 plots from which tephra had been removed in September 1982; these plants had been buried for almost 3 growing seasons. Results were compared with the same plots before...