| Mountain
Longleaf Pine NWR, AL |
ecri-@juno.com |
| Aug
19, 2005 19:21 PDT |
Ents,
Two weekends ago my dad and I visited the Mountain Longleaf Pine
National
Wildlife Refuge in east-central Alabama. The refuge has been
formed in
the last five years out of lands from the now decommissioned
Fort
McClellan military base. The refuge's 9,000 lie entirely on
Choccolocco
Mountain, the third highest mountain in Alabama. Of those acres,
only
the approximately 3,000 located east of the main ridge line are
currently
open to the public; the rest of the area still needs to be
checked for
ordinances. That slope of the mountain rises out of gently
rolling
topography at a little over 700' and reaches slightly over 2000'
elevation. The mountain is considered part of the Blue Ridge
Physiographic province, as are the Smokies, but bears only a
general
resemblance to the mountains of northeastern GA, western NC, and
eastern
TN. The mountain has a more linear form, and reaches less than
half the
height of the mountains in those areas. Additionally, drier
hotter
conditions prevail in the Alabama extension of the Blue Ridge.
The mountain's vegetation reflects those climatic differences.
Chestnut
oak grows from the ravines at the base of the mountain up to the
mountains main ridgecrest, and forms nearly pure stands.
Virginia pine
and scarlet oak mix in on the ridges, and blackjack oak, pale
hickory,
and longleaf pine fill out the canopy on the upper slopes. A few
pockets
of apparently richer soils support forests with black oak and an
unusual
abundance of pignut hickory with patches of georgia or painted
buckeye
(Aesculus sylvatica) in the understory. Most of the stands with
more
chestnut oak in the canopy had open understories with scattered
sparkleberry, but the north side of one ridge hosted a dense
thicket of
mountain laurel. Diversity did increase along the streams with
beech,
basswood, and tuliptree in a narrow corridor, but longleaf pine
also
descended to some of the lower slopes.
The mountain presents unusual habitat for longleaf pine. The
highly fire
adapted species often conjures up images of the Atlantic and
Gulf coastal
plains where the species forms an open, monotypic canopy, and an
understory kept clear of larger deciduous species by frequent
low
intensity fires. However, the species' range extends out of the
coastal
plain into the Ridge and Valley and Blue Ridge sections of the
Appalachians in eastern Alabama and a small area of adjacent
northwest
Georgia. Protecting the only remaining, formally recognized
stand of
old-growth mountain longleaf pine served as one major impetuses
for the
formation of the refuge. Military training exercises apparently
provided
the periodic fires necessary for maintaining the species
composition of
the 80 acre stand.
Species Cbh Height
Hickory, Pale 3'11" 65.8'
Hickory, Pale 4'6.5" 73.1'
Oak, Blackjack NA 46.8'
Pine, Longleaf 2'5" 70.5'
Pine, Longleaf NA 74.8'+
Pine, Longleaf 5'6" 81.4'
Pine, Longleaf 8'5" 88'
Sumac, Winged 11" 31.1'
Tupelo, Black 8'7" 71'+
Willow, Coastal Plain 8" 18.9'
The longleaf pines listed above grow in mechanically disturbed
areas with
the exception of the largest individual, which grows amongst
mountain
laurel and clearly old chestnut oaks on a lower slope position.
Most of
the mature longleaf pines were perhaps 60 to 70' tall and
emergent in dry
forests on the upper slopes. Their crowns had a squished
appearance,
almost as if they resulted from some giant sitting of domed
crowns, put
they were not nearly as flattened as the crowns of old shortleaf
pines or
some other conifer species. The 81.4' tree was an exception to
that
structural trend.
In spite of the ubiquitous dry conditions and having only one
species of
maple, we encountered 47 species of trees on the mountain,
including
seven species of oaks. On the way out we stopped by a small
patch of
mature bottomland hardwoods in the floodplain of Choccolocco
Creek, and
encountered four additional species of oaks. The largest of
those was a
17'7" cbh cherrybark oak.
Jess & Doug Riddle
|
| Re:
Mountain Longleaf Pine NWR |
Fores-@aol.com |
| Aug
20, 2005 07:49 PDT |
Jess:
I had a chance to visit the area a few years ago in early April.
It was a
cool spring day and the rolling nature of the terrain and the
hills reminded
me tremendously of central Massachusetts. Every time I felt a
cool breeze on
my face, I tried to imagine the place in August and quickly
decided that
April was one of the best times for a cool climate resident to
check out the
place.
One thing about the mountain longleaf...there will not likely be
many height
records for associated species on those dry hills!
Russ Richardson |
| Re:
Mountain Longleaf Pine NWR |
ecri-@juno.com |
| Aug
20, 2005 11:47 PDT |
Russ,
Fortunately, the day we were there was generally overcast and
the
temperature only reached the low 80's, but the dew point must
have been
quite high. I wasn't really expecting towering longleaf, but
precipitation in that area is comparable of much of longleaf's
range.
Additionally, the mountain longleaf have sheltering by
topography and
experience fewer and less severe hurricanes. That being said,
the soils
at the site are certainly much drier and nutrient poor than in
sections
of the gulf coastal plain. I just wanted to see how large
longleaf could
grow in an atypical habitat, and hoped that some associated poor
site
species, like blackjack oak, might find the area to their
liking.
Jess
|
| Re:
Mountain Longleaf Pine NWR |
ad-@ldeo.columbia.edu |
| Aug
20, 2005 12:26 PDT |
Hi All,
An excellent masters thesis was completed on this montain
longleaf pine forest
by Morgan Varner. For those interested, please check out these
two papers [esp.
the Castanea paper - has some important implications for
longleaf pine ecosystem
dynamics and forest management]:
Varner, J. M ., J. S. Kush, and R. S. Meldahl. 2003. Structure
of old-growth
longleaf pine ( Pinus palustris Mill.) forests in the mountains
of Alabama.
Castanea 68: 211-221.
Varner, J. M., J. S. Kush, and R. S. Meldahl . 2003. Vegetation
of frequently
burned old-growth longleaf pine ( Pinus palustris Mill.)
savannas on
Choccolocco Mountain, Alabama, USA . Natural Areas Journal 23:
43-52; cover
photograph.
Morgan's thesis:
http://aubiecat.auburn.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?CNT=50&Search%5FArg=varner&Search%
5FCode=NAME%2B&PID=22998&BROWSE=17&HC=1&SID=1
or his web page : http://www.humboldt.edu/~for/faculty/varner.html
Hope this helps,
Neil
|
| Re:
Mountain Longleaf Pine NWR |
Fores-@aol.com |
| Aug
20, 2005 15:25 PDT |
Jess:
I think that every type of forest we have is best experienced in
person. It
isn't just the height or girth of the trees although it is never
far from my
mind. The other attributes I try to notice range from song
birds, wildlife
and understory vegetation to the soil fertility and local land
use history.
I'm kinda a fan of woods as a "whole package" and I
enjoy the detail of your
trip descriptions immensely.
Russ |
|