| Mill
Creek Pine |
Will
Blozan |
| Mar
23, 2007 16:29 PST |
ENTS,
This week Jess Riddle and I spent three days exploring streams
in the Cades
Cove, TN area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We
were on a hunt
for big hemlocks for the Tsuga Search Project. One side trip
after a day of
searching was a visit to the Mill Creek Pine, a white pine
Michael Davie and
I first measured many years ago on Mill Creek just south of the
Cades Cove.
I have wanted to return since the monocular technique has been
developed to
measure tree volume. Being over 13 feet in girth and nearly 150'
tall I
suspected it may be one of the largest white pines in the park.
We found the tree in very good shape with a full crown. DBH was
13'9" and it
terminated at a tip 148.8 feet high. The lower 16-18 feet was a
slow tapered
column of wood after which it began a moderate taper. The taper
of the trunk
was more pronounced that that of a typical hemlock, but the
monocular still
indicated a wood volume of 929 cubes. Not bad for the first
white pine
modeled in the park, but it is fairly certain there is not a
1000 cubic foot
white pine to be found in the Smokies. However, there are still
more places
to look.
The Zahner Pine, a huge tree near Highlands, North Carolina,
will no doubt
exceed 1000 cubic feet and may very well set the first volume
benchmark to
be challenged by the northeastern and mid-western pines. This
immense pine
is 13'10" in girth and over 160 feet tall. It appears to
lose little girth
for the first 50 feet, a trunk feature that will rack up the
cubes! A climb
of this tree is forthcoming- more to come.
Will Blozan
President, Eastern Native Tree Society
President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc.
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