ENTS,
Last week, I was invited to accompany Josh Kelly, Jess Riddle, and Hugh Irwin on a trip to Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in Graham County, NC. The purpose of the trip was spawned by some unusually high LiDAR canopy height "hits" in fly-over data Josh had been reviewing. The data set included several hits in the mid to upper 170's and a few over 180'. Past ENTS trips to JKMF have not located heights of the magnitude indicated by the data except for some white pines in the upper 160's and mid 170's. A pine measured by James Parton in 2008 at 176' is the tallest tree known from this forest relic, and needs a re-visit to substantiate its current condition. The current LiDAR data does not indicate a tree of such height in the area; perhaps it has fallen. In general though, most prior trips focused on the "Poplar Loop" in the productive flats of the lower, heavily visited cove. Canopy heights of 140-165', though impressive, were not exceptional. Thus, the extreme canopy hits caused quite a stir in us southern Appalachian tree hunters! The main target was a small cove to the south of the famous Poplar Loop Trail. The LiDAR data indicated a pocket of exceptionally tall and tightly clustered trees. Josh had seen the area in the summer and was stunned to see it was not in the old-growth section but an old clear cut near the homestead of the prior owners of the tract. In the summertime clutter of leaves Josh was able to substantiate that the trees were indeed tall but would need to be visited when the leaves were off for best measurements. To get to the cove we proceeded off trail from the Poplar Loop and headed up a small ravine. At the base of the ravine Jess spotted a fine pignut hickory 10'1" X 141.1' tall. As we progressed further up the ravine I spotted another pignut of similar size. This one scaled 10'10" X 142.7' tall. The ravine offered more tall trees; one of the most impressive was another pignut with perfect form. I shot up in the crown from below and realized it would exceed 150'- a height that is quite impressive for the species. Jess zeroed the base as I went upslope to measure the height. WOW! This slender tree turned out to be 9'10" X 157.5' tall! Jess located a huge snag of a tuliptree that had fallen and the immense bulk had slid down the slope quite a distance. White ash reached 12'4" in girth and up to 130.7' tall, and also in this cove were a 14'3" X 166.1' tuliptree and a 8'6" X 130.1' sugar maple. But stealing the show in the upper reaches of this cove rimmed with frozen cascades was a large bitternut, 9'2" X 150.3'. Second new species for the site over 150'! Having exhausted the tall tree resources of this small cove, we slide-sloped with great difficulty over the frozen ground into another small cove. We found nothing of significance in this one and proceeded on to the "hot spot". We crested the ridge and WHAM! Shafts of arrow straight tuliptree and other hardwoods dominated the deep but narrow ravine. There was so much potential in this dense pocket it was hard to know where to start. We began by shooting up into the crowns to seek out the tall ones and then consulted the GPS points for the "hits" of tall canopy we were after. Jess was exclaiming of straight up laser shots into the young trees of 55 yards (165')! Jess and I stayed upslope to perform the height routines while Josh and Hugh measured girth and GPS points of the trees. The LiDar data was filtered to only show points over 160 feet so shorter trees- even though exceptional for the species- would not even show up. Thus "hiding" in the tall forests of tuliptree were trees that don't quite make it as tall but are none-the-less record breaking for the species. This was the case with the first tree I measured in the hot spot. This was a black cherry that looked really tall yet was obviously shorter than the tuliptrees around it. I found a solid sighting position while Josh measured the girth. Well, this tree shattered the former height record by 11 feet! At 152.2 feet tall this tree is a new 150 club member! Josh and Hugh would walk in the base of the ravine and state that, according to the LiDAR data there should be a 175' tree within 10 feet or so. Sure enough, the LiDAR was dead-on. The 178 foot hit was also dead on, and the 178.1 foot tree is now the tallest tree in JKMF and the second tallest currently known (The Rucker Tuliptree, formerly 178.2', has died back from the extreme frost of 2008). In all we measured six tuliptrees over 170' and there are probably a few more in this one small cove. After detailed measurements of the tallest in the ravine we headed up a flat cove to check out more hot spots and check out a 175' LiDAR return. On the way Jess spotted a fine white ash that proved to be of exceptional height. This tree fell below the 160' threshold but not by much! The 9'10" tree reached an impressive 157.3' tall. More 170+ tulips were scattered in the small cove we went up, the tallest 174.5'. Jess measured a cucumbertree to 134.5' and I measured a decent white basswood to 139.7'. In this cove, aside from the tuliptree, white ash and cherry nothing else made it into the Rucker Index. We headed down to find the 175'+ point. We used the GPS to get to the spot yet no tree of that height was found. However, a 135 foot tuliptree was leaning heavy over a small ravine. Guess what? The leaning tree's top was ~185 feet above the ravine! So, ground-truthing is still a very important part of the LiDAR process and this error shows that it is certainly not full-proof. Same happened with a leaning white pine on a steep slope. The tree was only 149 feet tall but the ground was easily 170 feet below the top. But, pretty dag-gone awesome to say the least! I was floored at the height accuracy and the ground placement of the hits. Incredible! We wish to point out that no 170+ LiDAR hits in the old-growth have yet proven to be legitimate; it looks as though the tallest trees in JKMF are second-growth. This finding is mirrored in the Smokies and other sites as well. What is also striking about this site is the impressive Rucker Index is composed of trees in a very small area. This suggests that there is more to be found in this impressive forest relic! So, the current Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest Rucker Index stands at 15#.#: Will F. Blozan Josh Kelly Jess Riddle Hugh Irwin Eastern Native Tree Society
