ENTS,
Yesterday, I was showing Julie Darcey areas of MTSF. Julia is a graduate student at Boston College. She is a science and medical journalism major. She wants to write an article on the return of big trees to New England forests and the role of ENTS in searching for the big trees and old growth and establishing accurate data on the big trees. While in the Trees of Peace Grove, I used the opportunity to remeasure the Joe Norton tree. I returned to the Joe Norton tree. I'm obsessed with getting the most accurate ground-based height that I can for that tree. Courtesy of where Andrew placed his pole, I could finally get a fairly good fix on the sprig that Andrew identified as the top in his climb. The sprig is located in a part of the crown that is ordinarily hard see, and consequently, hard to measure from the ground. It isn't the spot in Joe's crown that I ordinarily measure. However, by shifting around and shooting from different spots, eventually I got through to Andrew's twig. My shots ranged from 163.0 feet to 164.0 feet in height. The average of these extremes is 163.5 - exactly what the tape drop showed. This kind of result has happened before and it adds credence to our claim of accuracy in our ground-based measurements. I've not had any personal doubt about our ability to measure from the ground to +/- 0.5 feet and often to +/- 0.25 ft - provided we can see the target and are sufficiently motivated to spend the time taking careful measurements, looking for patterns, continuously check on the calibration of our equipment, and do some statistical analysis. The process is labor intensive, but it is what we do. So thanks to Andrew's climb, we now have a good fix on the Joe Norton tree, named for Grand Chief Joseph Takwiro Norton of the Kahnawake Mohawks in Canada. Incidentally, Joe Norton was present at the dedication of his tree in July 1997. So, as of now, what are the 15 tallest trees in Massachusetts and why stop at 15? At present, there are 15 trees above 156 feet in height, and 156 is a convenient cutoff point. There are maybe 10 additional pines between 155.0 and 155.9. So, I'm just cutting the list off at a convenient place. The heights in the table below reflect the latest climb data where available. Trunk volumes are the latest projections based on differential growth rates that we've computed as likely for each tree. Tree Location Species Height Girth Volume Last Climbed Jake Swamp MTSF WP 169.3' 10.5' 585 ft^3 Will Blozan 2008 Mike Davie 2001 Will Blozan 1998 Saheda MTSF WP 165.6' 11.8' 705 ft^3 Will Blozan 2007 Will Blozan 1998 Tecumseh MTSF WP 164.1' 12.0' 784 ft^3 Will Blozan 200? Joe Norton MTSF WP 163.5' 9.5' 446 ft^3 Andrew Joslin 2009 Will Blozan 2001 Van Pelt 2001 Algonquin MTSF WP 162.3' 9.1' 401.0 ft^3 Lee Frelich MTSF WP 161.0' 8.6' 350.6 ft^3 Frank Decontie MTSF WP 160.9 10.3' 502.0 ft^3 L. Frank Decontie MTSF WP 160.5' 7.0' 225.0 ft^3 Joseph Brant MTSF WP 160.3' 11.1' 613.0 ft^3 Thoreau MSF WP 160.2' 12.5' 830.0 ft^3 Will Blozan 2004 Van Pelt 2004 W. Commanda MTSF WP 157.5' 10.6' 563.0 ft^3 John Brown MTSF WP 157.3' 8.1' 303.6 ft^3 Bryant Bryant H. WP 156.5' 10.1' 508.0 ft^3 Sacajawea MTSF WP 156.4' 10.2' 492.0 ft^3 Mirror MTSF WP 156.0' 11.0' 556.0 ft^3 Can we really know that the above trees are the only ones at 156 ft or more in Massachusetts? No, not unless we measure every worthwhile candidate, but to use an old expression, trees in this height class are scarce as hen's teeth. Most landowner's have over-growth matchsticks that they tout as their big/tall pines. Trees in graveyards and in parks can be large, but if isolated are usually not over 110 or 115 feet. A couple of city parks in the Connecticut River Valley have white pines in the 130s, but that is exceptional. Eastern Mass just doesn't grow the exceptionally tall pines due I think to the type of bedrock. One great tree not in the above list is the Ice Glen Pine. I can't get numbers over 155 feet for its height. My present determination is a hair under 155. However, the Ice Glen pine's girth is an impressive 13.05 ft and its volume is now around 940 ft^3. This brings me to an interesting observation. The volumes of these very tall trees vary greatly from a wimpy 225 cubes to 940. That is a ratio of over 4 to 1. One question that always arises when I talk about the all trees is how do we know that we have them all? Given the search time, we'll almost certainly find a few more stands in the valley regions of western Mass with pines in the 130-139-ft height range and a few individual pines in the Deerfield Valley in the 140 to 149-ft height class, but not many. I'd certainly be excited to confirm a few more 150s in Mass, but I will be surprised if we find over half a dozen more. Call it intuition. more likely, it is a product of having searched for years and having developed a pretty fine search pattern for where to look. As a final contribution, t he latest summary count of 150s in Massachusetts follows: Location # 150s MTSF 86 Bryant Homestead 5 Ice Glen 3 (one questionable) Monroe SF 1 ------ 95 Bob P.S. Two acknowledgements. Again, our thanks to Andrew Joslin for his climb and tape drop measurement of the Joe Norton tree, yesterday, and thanks to my friend Tim Zelazo for bringing official attention to the great Mohawk pines. Tim has a heck of a job on his hands to insure that the pines are appreciated and made available to some extent to the public, but not over-exposed. Excessive attention can lead to soil compaction around the roots of pines. At least, this is what I've been told. Thoughts of others? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
