Southeastern NY ENTS team    dbhg-@comcast.net
   Nov 14, 2004 15:56 PST 
ENTS:

    Well, this was the weekend that we kicked off the southeastern NY ENTS tree search initiative. The team included: Howard Stoner, Phyllis Silvers, Holly Post, and yours truly. The team will, no doubt, be expanded in the future, but the core group got the initiative started.

    We began Saturday AM with a trip to Frost Valley YMCA Camp in the central Catskills to check out the facility for a future ENTS rendezvous. On the whole, the Catskills are an austere growing environment. Surprises are proving to be few and far between. The Camp had impressive facilities. In other feature, it had some positives and some negatives. The main positives of Frost Valley are reasonable cost, excellent services, and old growth on the adjacent DEC Forest Preserve. However, there are no impressive trees around the Camp and getting to the big ones involves long drives. We will continue to evaluate the site.

    After leaving Frost Valley, we followed water drainages of two streams, the Never Sink River and Rondout Creek. Most of the forest was nondescript, with the exception of one species. The abundance of sycamores made portions of the streams very interesting. In one stretch, they totally dominated. I'm unaccustomed to seeing that. We measured sycamores from 115 to a maximum of 123.7 feet in height. Girths were modest at around 7.5 to 9 feet. I was very pleased to see the species in such abundance. We can credit Phyllis Silvers for leading us to the area. A loan tuliptree on the other side of a stream feeding the Ashokan Reservior measured 126.0 feet tall and appeared to be about 8 feet around. It is a young tree and very much an isolated specimen.

    The abundance of sycamores so far up stream suggests the need to search for the species down toward the Delaware and Hudson Rivers. There is every reason to believe that we will find lots of sycamores in the 100 to 120-foot height class and occasionally taller. Tracing the paths of the sycamore will be one of our priorities.

    This morning we said goodbye to Howard who had to return home and we then visited two famous estates on the Hudson River: the estates of Franklin D. Roosevelt estate and Cornelius Vanderbilt. Our time was limited, so we only got a taste of what both estates had to offer. We'll be going back to visit both in December. Trees measured on the FDR estate follow.

Species                 Height          Girth
Tuliptree                 115.9'          12.6'
Norway                   107.3'          13.5' ( largest I've measured)
Tuliptree                 131.3'          11.5' est
Pignut hickory         120.0'            7.8' est

     There were some large sycamores in the 110 to 115-foot height range and 9 to 12-foot girth range. We will return to measure them all. Native species observed on the FDR estate included: tuliptree, sycamore, shagbark hickory, pignut hickory, chestnut oak, n. red oak, white oak, black oak, black birch, sugar maple, red maple, American beech, white pine, hemlock, yellow birch, hop hornbeam, slippery elm, and black locust.

    The Cornelius Vanderbilt estate was the last place we visited. We had almost no time left - and what a pity. What a pity. There are many large trees there. I couldn't get to the ones I measured to take their circumferences. They were all on a steep slope and I didn't have permission to go off the paths. So accurate circumferences will have to await a return visit.

Species                     Height        Circumference
Sycamore                   133.0'             18.0' est (maybe larger)
Tuliptree                     147.0'             12.5' est
Tuliptree                     150.8'             13.0' est

    Will, Dale, et. al., I was calm and collected. Honest. I hardly uttered a sound. Most proper and reserved. I muttered things like, "jolly good show" and "way to go, old boy". Right, Phyllis and Holly? Needless to say, there will be MULTIPLE return visits!!

     Folks, the Hudson River corridor has tremendous potential. The old estates will be the first places we look, but who knows how many spots shelter splendid trees waiting for the eagle eyes of Ents to herald them. There is no telling what we will eventually document, but we definitely should pull some high Rucker indices out of the estates. The Hudson River corridor must be the site of a future ENTS rendezvous. As for now, the intrepid southern NY ENTS team will press on with the search. Bolstered by our first confirmed 150-foot hardwood in the New England - eastern NY region, the Ents spirit is high. Southeastern NY is living up to expectations.

Bob

RE: Southeastern NY ENTS team    Robert Leverett
   Nov 17, 2004 10:06 PST 

Jess:

At this point, it is anybody's guess. The forest-grown trees on the
slopes are naturally the tallest ones, but the cultivated trees in flat
areas are gorgeous also - and large. The 107 x 13.5 Norway spruce on the
FDR Estate really opened my eyes to the possibilities.

The Vanderbilt Estate has far greater potential than the FDR Estate.
However, there are many more choices. There is a large number of old
estates along both sides of the lower Hudson and any or many could have
individual tree records and/or areas of mature forest with high Rucker
indices.

It is my sense that the growing conditions along the lower Hudson are
more favorable to large tall trees than those along New England's
Connecticut. I could be all wet too. I haven't even begun to seriously
explore Connecticut's stretch of the Connecticut River.

What bodes well for high Rucker indices along the lower Hudson is the
abundance of tuliptree, sycamore, cottonwood, n. red oak, sugar maple,
hemlock, and hickory. There's a lot of scattered white pine, but it
doesn't seem to play the role that it does farther north.

If we get lucky and find an old estate with a diversity of species and
growing conditions such as those existing on the Vanderbilt Estate, a
Rucker index of 130 is not out of the question. In fact, we may come
close to that for the Vanderbilt Estate. We could get 125 to 127 from
what I saw Sunday.

Bob

Jess Riddle wrote:
 
Wow! Impressive heights at the Vanderbilt Estate. Since those trees
are
on steep slopes, I assume they are older forest grown. Do both of the
estates have potential for new records of both open and forest grown
trees?

Jess