Meet Yo Mama, Conway, MA   Robert Leverett
  May 08, 2006 05:50 PDT 

ENTS,

Well, as of late Saturday afternoon, I do believe I succeeded in
confirming a legitimate 1000-cube white pine here in old Massachusetts.
The Grandfather tree in MSF and the Ice Glen pine in Ice Glen both
probably fall just shy of 1000 cubes of trunk volume. Including limbs
would push both over - or nearly so.

But back to Yo Mama. The Conway Graveyard has several large white
pines growing among the grave sites that date back into the 1700s.
Heretofore, I had focused my attention on one in particular, a
single-stemmed pine that is 140.5 feet tall and 14.3 feet around. A
second big tree is 11.6 feet around and 129.2 feet tall. However, there
is a third tree that is conspicuously larger than the others. It is a
multi-stemmed pine that I have named "Yo Mama" because when I looked
around at all the other large, but not as large pines, I thought to
myself, "Hey, pines, pay respect to Yo Mama."

Image of Yo Mama taken by John Knuerr.  Yo Mama is obviously the tree on the left. 

   Yo Mama is 15.6 feet in circumference at breast height. At ground
height on the uphill side, she is a solid 16.7 feet around. There is a
4-foot difference in height from uphill to downhill. Yo Mama has three
large trunks with separate heights of 122.3, 121.6, and approximately
115 feet. The split into 3 trunks starts at 10 feet and is complete at
14.5 feet.

   To do a thorough job of modeling Yo Mama, I need help from
mathematician John Eichholz and there is a lot of work left for us to
do. Each of the tree's main trunks subdivides into 2 trunks and the
middle trunk has an offshoot which I didn't model. I think the final
volume will likely be around 1,100 cubes, although I currently have it
as 1,210. To get a first cut at the volume I used the Dendrometer and
made adjustments. Using the raw data from the Dendrometer, I got 1,350,
but that is too much. Shape is a big factor with this tree. However, I
did account for some ellipticality, but probably not enough.

   The average crown spread for this behemoth is 70.7 feet. The long
spread is 73 feet. The limbs are large and add probably 5% more volume
to the trunk structure. There is no question that the combined trunk and
limb structure exceeds 1000 cubes.   

Michele,

You live near Conway. Maybe we could meet at the Graveyard in the near
future and you could give me a hand modeling Yo Mama. Any possibility of
that? It is hard to do the job without help. We could make a sketch of
the tree, numbering the trunks and limbs and then proceed to carefully
measure each. It might take 2 or even 3 outings.

   Well, if anyone wants to meet Yo Mama, that can be arranged. No
question about it, Yo Mama is a big mama. Were I not prejudiced against
open-grown, multi-stemmed pines, I would have paid more attention to Yo
Mama. Oh well, better late than never.

Bob

Robert T. Leverett
Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society

RE: Meet Yo Mama   Robert Leverett
  May 09, 2006 05:14 PDT 

Ed,

Yo Mama is a single-stemmed tree that splits at 10 feet - one pith at
ground level. There is a similar tree in West Field's Stanley Park,
which I need to model and there may be several of the big pasture pines
in eastern Massachusetts. There is a double (two piths) in Bullard Woods
in Stockbridge, MA that is 19 feet around. It is the largest double that
I've seen.

My current thinking is that all these forms should be of interest to
us and we should track them. Should we co-mingle them in lists? Now
that's a question to answer? My current thought is that trees that start
out as a single stem should not be co-mingled with doubles, triples,
etc. Should we track the latter in special lists? I would think so.

Bob