Montgomery Zoo   Zachary Stewart
  Jun 19, 2007 21:54 PDT 

ENTS,
Back on May 27th our family visited the Montgomery Zoo as part of a
two-day vacation. I was surprised at the variety of trees inside the
zoo, and, occasionally, their size! The most commonly encountered
species included live oak, willow, baldcypress, water and willow
oaks, longleaf pine, and even palmetto! Apparently the largest
ones were left when the zoo was built, and thus are significantly
larger than specimens found just outside the zoo. The live oak were
especially interesting - Montgomery lies more than 100 miles inland,
quite a ways from where live oak are expected to grow. In the picnic
table area just inside the gates, there are live oaks spreading
somewhere in the 60-80' range, with cbh of about 120" (I did not
bring any sort of measuring equipment, unfortunately). One esp-
ecially large live oak near a main corridor looked as though it had
once spread close to 80-100' (one side was trimmed) ! These are
rather large for inland trees by Alabama standards, as far as I can
tell. The baldcypress were not very large (40' at most) but they
were the most beautifully shaped, perfectly-formed ones I've ever
seen. They were apparently planted. The oaks were few and far be-
tween, but a few really caught my attention: growing between the
footpath and a structure, the trees grew straight and tall on large
(>120"cbh?) trunks; in my estimate they could have topped 80'. Not
record-breaking, but for a zoo that seems pretty large. The longleaf
pines were not too large either but they were fairly numerous
throughout the park. The palmetto was especially interesting; it
was not particularly tall (15-20') but had a good-sized stem,
still covered thickly in leaf bases; I think this indicates it is
a young tree (?). The stem was about as big as I've seen in trees
on our Gulf Shores vacations. I also saw fairly good-sized ash and
hackberry/sugarberry. One interesting tree caught my eye: a wide-
spreading tree with chestnut-like leaves. Could have been an oak,
I didn't study it for a while (the zoo had a nice, constant sprinkler
system going in that part of the park that was watering the plants
and soaking people who stood in one place looking at trees), but it
looked somewhat like a chestnut. More likely it was an oak. Anyway,
further back in the park, I saw some sizable redbud and willow,
in addition to large non-natives (large silktrees and tallowtrees,
in particular), and all kinds of other species that were growing in
the nearby woods. The zoo borders, on at least one corner, a large
pond to be used for a future exhibit, and all kinds of typically
river-side trees (willow in particular) grew there, as seen from the
park's miniature railroad. Silktrees in that same area were pretty
sizable as well (a species that has always interested me for some
reaon). I can't remember all that we saw that day, but it was a
really nice place to visit in the 88* Montgomery heat. By the way,
the animal exhibits were really nice as well; no cramped cages,
lots of room to roam. Very nice place! Hope to re-visit!!!

-Zac