The Orchard on Burned Ground

In 1988, a wildfire swept through the hills outside Yellowstone, charring over 790,000 acres. Rangers and tourists alike mourned what seemed like irreversible devastation. Blackened lodgepole pines stood like grave markers across the landscape. But botanists knew something the grieving observers did not. Lodgepole pine cones are serotinous — sealed shut by resin, they only release their seeds in extreme heat.…