Colby:
This afternoon Rob and I spent several
hours in South Hadley's Black
Stevens Conservation Area. It is a beautiful woodland split by a
ravine
formed by Newton Smith Brook. The site is in Hampshire County.
It features
black, red, and white oak, black locust, sugar maple, and red
maple, and
white pine. Other species such as black birch are minor. A few
American
chestnuts sprouts can be seen. The conservation area has deep
silt soils and
the tree growth reflects it. A cluster of northern red oaks
break 100 feet.
The one I measured today is 108.0 feet tall and 8.9 feet around.
Several
others are in that class. The largest is around 10 feet in
circumference and
about 95 feet tall. A white oak measures 98.9 feet tall and is
7.4 feet
around. There are several white oaks in that class. There are a
lot of black
oaks in the 7 to 8-foot around class and 80 to 95 feet tall. The
white pines
are old field pines, but in good shape. They appear to be
between 100 and
115 feet tall. However, the find of the day was a slender black
locust, one
of half a dozen that break 100 feet in height. The particular
tree, the
winner of the competition is 5.8 feet around and 114.4 feet
tall! It is a
new champion of height for its species in Massachusetts.
The Conservation area provides another
reference site to use in
eventually calculating probabilities for height and
circumference ranges.
Bob
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