James,
Another great installment on your local forest. BTW, the Rucker index is always the 10 tallest species on the site- looks like you may have used 11? Will F. Blozan President, Eastern Native Tree Society President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc. "No sympathy for apathy" _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of James Parton Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 11:20 PM To: ENTS Subject: [ENTS] Eaton/Julian Forest ENTS, Today I continue to explore the forests near my home that surround Lake Julian near Asheville NC. I have done a couple of past posts on the forests near the lake and following these I will label this section of forest section 6. http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/north_carolina/julian/lake_julia n_park_nc.htm http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/north_carolina/lake_julian_pine_ forest.htm Section 6, is located on a peninsula jutting out into the lake whose base is near the EATON plant at the end of Heywood Rd. I entered the woods near the plant and first found a nice Holly and big Pitch Pine. While measuring the pine which turned out to be a decent 6' 2 1/2" cbh and 97.3 ft tall I thought of " Pine Barrens " Barry and thought, " This one's for him ". It reminded me of that big one he found recently in the barrens. . Going deeper into the forest I noticed several hemlocks. One that was close to 100 feet tall was dead and all are in decline, no doubt because of adelgid infestation. Also invasive plants were everywhere. Especially tangles of Oriental Bittersweet and Engish Ivy had the forest floor carpeted green in places. I also found a small Norway Spruce growing here too. Later I found a live hemlock at 97.9 feet. One really big Red Oak was measured. A fused one that split into two trunks about 3 feet above the ground. Below the split it measures a whopping 12' 1" in girth! The left trunks highest point is 95.1ft and right is 97.2ft tall. After measuring some more pines and a nice White Oak I ventured into a pine dominated part of the forest. I was hoping to find some big White Pine since other sites on the lake had yielded some well over 100 feet tall. White Pine proved not as numerous here and also not as tall. Of the few I measured, they fell just short of the 100 foot mark and none had girths of 10 feet or more, unlike some of the WP on other lake sites. Pitch and Virginia pine dominate the site here but even here I found none quite 100 feet tall. Approaching the lake I found the shore covered and surrounded by ice. The lake is a cooling lake for the Progress Energy coal-fired plant here and is warmer than typical lakes in the area. So warm that they have Tilapia stocked in the lake which would die off in the winter in other area lakes. This forest is located near the cooling outlet of the plant hence locals call it the " hothole " side. Anyway, the warm water causes fog which condenses in the cold air and freezes on averything near the lake. The trees and bushes often are covered in ice during really cold weather and can be really pretty. I have fished many nights and left with ice all over my fishing stuff and even my coat! It can be a misty lake. Overall the trees here are pretty average and I surprisingly found none 100 feet tall or over. However I only explored not quite half of the peninsula and a hundred footer is probably present somewhere. However I believe I got a good sampling of the forest. Enough to get a good idea of what is there. I got 11 species, enough to get a preliminary Rucker Height Index of 84.91. Before factoring in the White Pine as the 11th tree I got 83.81 for 10 trees on the site. Still it gives me a good idea of the average canopy height. It agrees with what I see here. Here are the measurements Species CBH Height Spread American Holly* 2' 1/2" 43.1' White Pine* 7' 11 1/2" 96.0' Red Maple 1' 5" 41.3' Pitch Pine* 6' 2 1/2" 97.3' Eastern Hemlock* 5' 0" 97.9' Red Oak* 12' 1"! 97.2' White Oak 7' 7 1/2" 87.6' Tuliptree 5' 3" 98.2' Black Locust* 3' 11" 86.2' WhiteOak* 9' 2 1/2" 93.6' 77' 5" avg Sourwood 2' 8" 57.6' Pitch Pine 4' 2 1/2" 85.4' Virginia Pine* 4' 0' 88.4' Sourwood* 5' 6" 71.1' Tuliptree* 7' 3" 99.6' White Pine 7' 8' 94.2' Red Maple* 3' 0" 63.7' * Tree used in calculating Rucker Height Index. Rucker Index 84.91 Red Maples on the site averaged much smaller than the other hardwoods. Only Dogwoods and American Holly were smaller and then not by much. I wondered why this was so. This was my first time doing a Rucker index and Avg spread. I think I got it right. I thought about not using the American Holly because of it's small size compared to the other trees and using just the 10 others but Holly is common here and I thought it should be represented. James Parton
