Black Stevens Conservation Area:  New Black Locust Champ   Robert Leverett
  Oct 19, 2002 22:25 PDT 
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