Hi Tom, When I first saw Beaver Lake a little over a year ago, the forest stuck out to me as being taller than most forest I had seen in central NY. However, most of the tall trees are in a couple of small pockets. One reason Beaver Lake may have taller trees than some of the local old-growth sites is simply species composition. Notice that oaks barely reach 100'. Another contributing factor may be stand structure. The tallest trees were all in fairly dense, mature second growth stands.
Yes, I think most of the tall trees were in or around the sugar bush. The woodland trail goes through the cherry stand and the Deep Woods trail goes right along the upper edge of it. I may know the tuliptree your talking about, I saw one near the northeastern side of the lake conspicuously emerging about 20 above the surrounding canopy, but that is not the tuliptree I measured. The one I measured is on the northern edge of the cherry grove. I probably wouldn't have stopped to measured the black gum if you hadn't posted the list of state height records. The black gum is in the hemlock grove, and easily visible from the Lake Loop trail. The tree is close to the edge of the lake/swamp, but in well drained soil. The other sites on my list of places to measure are Morgan Hill SF and Letchworth Gorge SP. Morgan Hill is of interest primarily for the Norway spruce and European larch (I'm hoping for 130'), but I've seen a few large basswoods their also. Dale Luthringer posted a very nice description of Letchworth and collected some measurements, but I think the park has a lot more potential. Cheers, Jess On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 9:15 AM, thomas howard <[email protected]> wrote: > Jess, > I'm awestruck by the tree heights from Beaver Lake. I've walked all over > Beaver Lake hundreds of times for many years and I never imagined the trees > should be so tall - they are far taller than the old growth oaks and maples > of the North Syracuse Oak Groves - these Beaver Lake heights are simply > awesome! > The tallest tree I've seen in the oak groves is a 110 ft. Red Maple in the > Wizard of Oz Oak Grove, and the old Black Cherries in that grove do not > reach 100 ft. as far as I know but I haven't measured all of them yet. > The Black Cherry grove at Beaver Lake looks like a place called the > Sugarbush - is that where they are? I did dbh measurements on them in 2001 > but I never imagined they could be so tall. > Is the Tuliptree in the Beech Grove east of the lake? If so, it's a tree I > know well, and it's the only tree at Beaver Lake that I felt was really > tall. > Is the Black Gum on the Island, in the grove at the end of the boardwalk > across the swamp from the Hemlock Grove? Is so, my brother, my nephew and I > saw that tree in Oct. 2008. 88.4 ft. is really impressive for Black Gum this > far north - the Wizard of Oz Oak Grove's Anne Frank Black Gum is 94.5 ft. > tall. > Fantastic! > Tom Howard > ________________________________ > Windows 7: It works the way you want. Learn more. > > -- > 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] -- 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]
