Larry: Well, the forest has many younger to mid-age trees, but there are also a good number of larger, older ones that have the look of trees that have been left alone in the woods for years: they aren't low-branching "wolf trees" that once grew in fields.
Ages are hard to estimate, but here's my reasoning: Patapsco State Park in Maryland which I frequently visit has been a park for about 100 years. So, since it's unlikely that the park was barren of trees when declared a park, I'd estimate that the oldest trees there are over 100 years of age - this is particularly likely with larger members of slow-growing species and trees that are above the floodplain of the river. Bacon Ridge has a good number of large trees of the same species that weigh in at about the same size. Patapsco has more big trees (at least based upon the parts I've seen), but Patapso also has a higher concentration of tulip trees and much higher numbers of sycamores, both of which are large and fast growing. Bacon Ridge has fewer tulip trees when compared to the southern end of Patapsco and almost no sycamores (at least not in the area I visited.) So, the oldest trees there are probably around 100 years of age or so as a rough estimate. I did see a large number of big beech trees at Bacon Ridge, which is interesting since they are a slow-growing species. Some of those trees may be over 100 years easily. I also don't know if we really visited the areas with the biggest or oldest trees in the park since it was more of a bird-watching and general park tour vs. a big-tree hunt. Either way, the park is impressive and you'll see more than just dense, young second-growth trees. On Apr 19, 1:53 pm, Larry <[email protected]> wrote: > Matthew, Looks like a beautiful place. Glad to see it will be > protected from development! Good report! How old would you estimate > the trees at? Larry --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
