Jess,
Michael Kudish addresses the lack of red spruce on Slide Mountain in his must reading 'THE CATSKILL FORESTS - A HISTORY'. However, I don't think he has resolved the question. He has done lots of carbon dating throughout the Catskills to determine when different species repopulated the region. Initially his carbon dating results suggested that red spruce was a relative late comer, after 4,000BP. When he was relying on those results, his standard response to anyone asking about the absence of red spruce on Slide was that it probably was never there, since the migration northward would have first been through the Hudson River Valley and then up the slopes. However, in an addendum to the book, Michael reports on new carbon dating results that places the arrival of red spruce in the southern Catskills at around or slightly before 5000BP and in the northern Catskills around 3,300BP. I think he was initially searching for reasons for the absence of red spruce in certain areas. The dominance of oak forests on the escarpment is due to repeated burning, according to Mike, but past fires played a minor role in determining the vegetation on the summits of the eastern Catskills, which are pretty wet. As I communicated in an off-list email, the summits of Slide, Peekamoose, and Big Indian are all mapped as areas that receive over 70 inches of precipitation annually. Other summits are between 60 and 70. The western Catskills drop to around 50 inches. Some of the valleys lie in rain shadows and can drop to the high 30s in terms of annual precipitation. Jess, black cherry is a common constituent of the higher Catskill elevations. It seems to find the wet, but frequently wind, snow, and ice disturbed summits a favorable habitat. Finally, can we count you as a fan of the Catskills? I find them far more interesting now than when I first traveled across Route 23 and turned my nose up at the diminutive forests I saw. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jess Riddle" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:21:37 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Re: More Giant Ledge Bob, Thanks for the info on the higher elevation Catskill forest composition. I'm still trying to make sense of the forests I've seen on a couple of the higher summits. On Balsam Mountains 3600' summit, roughly equal proportions of balsam fir, yellow birch, and black cherry. The black cherry surprised me, especially after seeing a lone pin cherry just down the ridge. A dense forest of balsam fir with widely scattered yellow birch and mountain paper birch cloaks the 4180' summit of Slide Mountain. The lack of red spruce on both mountains perplexes me given the abundance or red spruce in the Adirondacks and the higher southern mountain ranges. I've heard the lack of spruce attributed to logging, but I don't buy that explanation. The upper slopes of Balsam Mountain looked like old-growth to me, although I did not see all sides of the mountain, and I have difficulty believing a single logging episode could eliminate a common, long lived, shade tolerat species. Jess On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:09 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > ENTS, > I am attaching more images of Giant Ledge, or the forest on Giant > ledge, I should say. The extra images are especially for Jess Riddle. I > think Jess would have a ball exploring the upper elevations of the > Catskills. There is much to study in the upper elevation old growth that > escapes most eyes. The images are described as follows. > 1. Image #1-BouldersAndTrees.jpg: Boulders are generously strewn around. Any > trek through the forest constantly brings one into areas that look like > this. > 2. RockFernAndUndergrowth.jpg: A apologize for the poor quality of this > shot. I was trying to capture the rich colony of polypody fern on the big > rock in the center. Every square inch of these upland Catskill forests is > covered in rich plant growth. I am guessing that Giant Ledge forests receive > about 65 inches of moisture annually. Because the trees are relatively > small, few people pay them much attention. However, it is these mountain-top > forests of the Catskills that I find most enchanting. > 3. Lichens.jpg: Ents accustomed to the high altitude forests of the > southern Apps will recognize the rich lichen growth on trunks and limbs of > the trees. > Jess, > The species I see most commonly on the Catskill summits and upper-level > slopes include red spruce, balsam fir, hemlock, yellow birch, beech, sugar > maple, red maple, striped maple, black cherry, white ash, mountain ash, > white birch, and basswood (on occasion). Aspen can be found especially in > human disturbed areas. On the south side of Catskill slopes oak becomes > abundant to dominant as you would expect, and there are a few pitch pine > cobbles where there have been repeated occurrence of fire. I don't see white > birch in abundance in the upper elevations, such as I see in fire > successional areas in the Berkshires. The upper elevations of the eastern > Catskills are wet, wet, wet. > Bob > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
