Dale,
What an exceptional site. Cook Forest still has plenty of surprises for us. I was impressed by the number of 130-ft black cherries and 12-ft circumference hemlocks. Taking PA as a whole, the possibilities seem endless. There is obviously a lot more in the keystone state than we ever imagined. I wish that were equally tree of New England, but alas, I fear it isn't. I haven't made any really exciting new big tree discoveries in quite a long time. However, some of the existing big trees continue to grow. On Saturday, Monica and I went to Bartholomew Cobble and I remeasured the big cottonwood. I was able to get a height of only 124 feet, down from a high of 129, but it is difficult to hit the high point from the only decent vantage point. It may be a little more, but winter ice could well have trimmed it back. However, its girth is now an even 19 feet. Not bad. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dale Luthringer" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2009 6:36:41 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Donut Black Cherry & other finds at Cook Forest Ents, On 11/12/08, Carl Harting & I got together at Cook Forest for the day to measure trees. The main gist was for Carl to show me an incredibly burled black cherry that he located, which was originally found by Bruce Kershner, Gerry Horowitz, and I believe Tom Diggins, that I was unable to find. Bruce told me about this black cherry years ago during an excursion for an ENTS event at Cook Forest that he spoke at a number of years ago. I must admit, that I took what he said in, but wasn't ready to believe a black cherry of the dimensions he described... the trunk wasn't incredibly big, but the burl was HUGE and wrapped completely around the trunk of the tree about 15' up. The circumference of the burl including the trunk of the tree he said was in excess of probably 13ft! I'm thinking, yeh right, Bruce... Well, Bruce wasn't spinning any tall tales. I told Carl about it, and during his travels, he came across it. So, today we went out to investigate and take some pics. The tree is located within the Deer Meadows Old Growth Area, located behind the publically owned Deer Meadows Campground. It stands at 7.2ft CBH x 105.5ft high. Not large by any means for a black cherry, but the burl makes it one of the most unique looking trees in the park (see pics). We decided to settle on naming it the 'Donut Black Cherry', for politically correct reasons... it certainly looks like something else, shut-up, Will... Along the way and after, in this same section of woods, we found some other decent trees worth listing: Species CBH Height Comments black cherry 7.2 105.5 Donut Black Cherry 41 21.961N x 79 13.454W black cherry 10.2 120.1+ black cherry 9 119.8+ black cherry 11 131.4 very nice, near Donut Black Cherry 41 21.970N x 79 13.481W E. hemlock 12.3 105.9 E. hemlock N/A 117.1 E. hemlock 11.4 119.4 E. hemlock 12.2 124.8 This now makes 34 hemlocks that make it into the coveted 12x100 class and 16 black cherries in the 130ft height class for Cook Forest. We then worked our way back to one of Carl's old haunts where an old Dairy Farm used to be along Forest Dr. He had some other trees he wanted to show me... It wasn't long before we proceeded to document some new park girth and height records. Species CBH Height Comments black cherry 11.6 90.7 park girth record, 41 21.428N x 79 12.450W E. hophornbeam 1.6 52.9 park height record, 41 21.717N x 79 12.486W quaking aspen 5.4 97.6 tallest documented PA, 41 21.428N x 79 12.450W shagbark hickory 3.8 112 shagbark hickory 3.4 114.7 park height record white ash 7.8 112.7 white ash 7.8 119.6 Next, we wanted to get a decent height & girth on some fat Am. beech just off Forest Dr. in the Forest Cathedral. Thankfully they were both still standing, albeit probably not for long due to beech bark disease. The largest turned out to be a co-girth record for the park at 11.6ft CBH x 112.3ft high. I'll have to return to take a picture. Species CBH Height Comments Am. beech 10.3 108.1+ Am. beech 11.5 112 park co-girth record, 41 21.204N x 79 12.541W Another fine day at Cook Forest. Dale --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
