Gulfport - Live Oak Project   tuce-@msn.com
  Jun 07, 2007 08:46 PDT 

ENTS,                                                                 
Measured two more 20' plus Live Oaks in Gulfport yesterday. Located at
1005 and 1008 Bridge St., Gulfport, Ms. The first tree, the new #22 on
our listing, CBH-24'2", Spread-135' and Height-66'. 
The new #22 The Bridge St. Oak located at 1005 Bridge St., Gulfport, Ms. CBH-24’2”, Spread-135’ and Height-66’.

The second tree, #36,CBH-20'4", Spread-105 and Height-58.5'.        

My listing now
contains 38 Measured Live Oaks 20' or greater CBH. The majority coming
from Ms., Louisiana has thousands more, I will focus on those soon. I
still haven't measured the Ms. State Champion Live Oak in Pearl River
Co. I also wrote the Owners of the National Champion Live Oak,(The Seven
Sisters Oak), for permission to remeasure it. In 2001 it was 38', maybe
in my Life, it will be 40'! Maybe not! The Ms. Gulf Coast has an almost
continuous Live Oak Grove from Biloxi Bay, west to Bay St. Louis, about
1 mile wide and 25 miles long. Making it possibly the Largest Live Oak
Grove in the World. 

   

Live Oak Leaves

I wonder how large the Live Oak Groves are in
Georgia, Virginia and the Carolina's? Anybody.   

Larry           
Back to Larry   dbhg-@comcast.net
  Jun 07, 2007 11:41 PDT 
Larry,

   I'm curious as to densities of the 20-footers. How are they distributed? For example, would you expect to find spots where there were 2 or more per say 100-acres area? For the most part, are these loaners, i.e. one per property? Or when you find one, is there a high probability of a second fairly close by as in a cemetery. The sheer number of square miles of the territory you are covering sounds like there is a possibility of finding hundreds of 20-footers. Is that correct? In your statement: "The majority coming from Ms., Louisiana has thousands more, I will focus on those soon.", does the "thousands more refer to the number of live oaks as a total population? You didn't mean thousands of 20-footers, did you?

Bob
RE: Back to Bob   tuce-@msn.com
  Jun 07, 2007 12:56 PDT 

Bob,                                                                    
                                                                         
As a total population, as for the distribution of large trees in Ocean
Springs there were 3,20+ within 5 acres. Sometimes they are in 2's, but
for the most part they are singles. In a natural setting undisturbed
there may have been hundreds or maybe thousands, I'm convinced I could
locate at least,100 20'+ Live Oaks on the Ms. Gulf Coast. The 30'+ are
the rare ones.
Back to Larry Again   dbhg-@comcast.net
  Jun 08, 2007 10:14 PDT 
Larry and Ed,

     Perhaps ENTS should start a 30-ft GBH club to shine the spotlight on the truly extraordinary big girth trees. Historically, live oak, bald cypress, American sycamore, American chestnut, and tuliptree would would make up the bulk of the membership, perhaps in that order of frequency. An occasional eastern cottonwood, white oak, willow, or tulepo would have found its way into the group. Silver maple would come close at times and maybe squeak in. But I doubt that there would be any other eastern species in the club beyond token representation. There is always room for a statistical outlier for species like cherrybark oak, willow oak, etc. but I've read nothing to suggest that those trees reached 30 feet in girth, which represents a thickness of 9.55 feet.

     For trees that split close to the ground, either as a coppice from the original tree having been cut or from some kind of natural damage, I would agree. We need to have a separate category for them. The challenge is to distinguish the fusion of what began and progressed as two separate until lateral expansion forced a fusion of trunks. I've become pretty adept at distinguishing fused white pines, but species like sycamore can be "fusion confusion".

Bob