Beech Mast
Every four to six years or so Nothofagus produces a heavier crop of seeds and is known as the beech mast. In New Zealand the beech mast causes an increase in the numbers introduced mammals such as mice, rats and stoats. When the rodent population collapses the stoats begin to prey on bird species, many of which are threatened with extinction.
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Famous quotes containing the word mast:
“Alas for America as I must so often say, the ungirt, the diffuse, the profuse, procumbent, one wide ground juniper, out of which no cedar, no oak will rear up a mast to the clouds! It all runs to leaves, to suckers, to tendrils, to miscellany. The air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion, & sloth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)