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   Home