Barry, That sucks! You would think they would leave stuff like that to the police, etc.
The biggest Pitch Pines I have measured are 7' 6" and 7' 7" in girth. Both are at the Kellogg Center in Hendersonville. Both trees are over 100 feet tall. I have found others in the 6-7 foot range in several other places. Will found one somewhere that was not tall but huge in girth. Over 13 feet, I think! James P. On Jan 8, 5:23 pm, Barry Caselli <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for the mention. I love hearing about Pitch Pines in other places. > Pitch Pines in the 6 foot range are common in non-desert-like areas of the > Pine Barrens. Finding one close to 7 feet is unusual, like the one I did the > video about. I visit that tree from time to time. Unfortunately the other day > I got back to my truck after hiking and found a warning from the county park > rangers, about my truck being overdue for inspection. If they see my truck > again they will issue a summons. You'd think the park rangers have more > important things to worry about than whether a vehicle belonging to a hiker > has an expired sticker on it. Oh well. I do need to get some things fixed on > it. > Anway, I got off track there a little. > Thanks, > Barry > > --- On Thu, 1/7/10, James Parton <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: James Parton <[email protected]> > Subject: [ENTS] Eaton/Julian Forest > To: "ENTS" <[email protected]> > Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 8:19 PM > > 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/lak... > http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/north_carolina/lake_julia... > > 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 > > > > > > >
