Tree of Life

I head east on a warm November day to the Texas A&M Forest Service office in La Grange to meet forester Logan McMillan. With rosy cheeks and a long, dark beard, McMillan looks to me like a smiley lumberjack of yore. He’s been with the Forest Service for nearly ten years and is an expert on oak species in Texas. I’m hoping to get a better grasp on the health of the Post Oak Savannah, the liminal ecosystem bridging the forests of East Texas and the prairies to the west. An important ecotone—a transition zone between two biological communities—it is home to some of our most beloved species, including whitetail deer, turkeys, armadillos, and painted buntings, as well as some not so known, like the endangered Houston toad. It is a landscape in which the grassland depends on the trees: post oaks.