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TOPIC: Co-Champion American Elm: Sugar Grove Ohio
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/49dc48ca1f4b6fa6?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 6 2008 7:07 pm
From: Randy Brown
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Last Sunday I visited the One of the State Co-champion American
Elm's
in Sugar Grove Ohio. First a little geography/geology lesson. This
little town is located a dozen miles south of boundary between the
rolling glaciated hills of South central Ohio and the Unglaciated
Appalachian plateau of southeastern Ohio. More specifically it is in
the Hocking river valley. This river is one of several river valleys
'reversed' by the glaciation of the last ice Age. Before the last
ice
age the river drainages predominantly flowed from the southeast to
the
Northwest. When the graciers ground their way south they lapped up
against the appalachian foothills damming these valleys. Naturally
these valleys turned into lakes which then overflowed into the next
lowest divide and headed south. The peculiar result being small
creeks that meander out of chaotic hills that empty into wide
spacious
valleys. These valleys than narrow the further downstream you go.
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This affect is most obvious if you compare the shaded surface
elevation map of ohio vs. the Bed Topography map.
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/sem_tone.pdf
http://www.cetconnect.org/ohiorocks/resources/docs/OhioBedrockTopography.pdf
The most famous example of this is the locally famous 'Teays River'.
This river used to drain the Kanawha/New River system of West
Virginia. The course it used to follow is still clearly visible in
the bedrock topography map as it flowed from southeast to northwest
across Ohio and then roughly westward across Indian and Illinois.
Comparing this to the surface topography you can see that the
glaciers
utterly obliterated this system in Ohio. It's appalachian headwaters
were captured by today's Ohio River valley, and it's local drainage
replaced by todays north to south flowing Miami(southwest ohio) and
Scioto River(central ohio) systems
For further reading: http://ohiodnr.com/?TabId=7867
Anyway back to the tree I've ridden my cycle by this tree numerous
times and noted it as a nice sized tree but didn't realize just how
large it was till I saw it in the Big Ttree register. The tree grows
at the bottom of a bowl-like draw with the Main street of Sugar
Grove
on one side and the Railroad-US 33 embankment on the other. The
posted sigh proudly boasts of the National and State Champion
"Slippery Elm". While the tree clearly posses the white
and red
banded bark layers characteristic of American Elm. Oops. Fortunately
the state list has it right.
The official state measurements are:
CBH: 270"
Height: 108'
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/bigtrees/nativechamps/tabid/4810/Default.aspx
I measured:
CBH: 278" (23'2")
Height: ~94.7'
I'm a little wary of my height measurement because this tree's crown
is so broad, almost to the point of being flat-topped and the twigs
so
thick that I could only hit the trigs toward the edge of the crown.
Further pictures are uploaded into the file section. While the tree
looks quite healthy today it's long term health looks sketchy to me.
A very large limb to the north has broken off (most likely an ice
storm, see the side view) and the sector of the trunk that supported
it has completely died. I imagine this section will rot out
undermining the support of the rest of the tree. Bummer
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 6 2008 7:12 pm
From: Chris Morris
Randy Brown wrote, On 03/06/2008 10:07 PM:
> The posted sigh proudly boasts of the National and
> State Champion "Slippery Elm". While the tree clearly
posses the white and red
> banded bark layers characteristic of American Elm. Oops.
Fortunately the state
> list has it right.
>
For a while it was listed as a Slippery Elm with the state (that is
what
my several year old copy of Ohio Big Trees says). I guess someone
finally got around to actually looking closely.
- Chris
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TOPIC: Co-Champion American Elm: Sugar Grove Ohio
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/49dc48ca1f4b6fa6?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 6 2008 10:13 pm
From: James Parton
Randy,
Wow what an Elm. I measured one at Connemara, here in Flat Rock NC
at
over 13' cbh. This one makes it look pretty small!
James P.
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Fri, Mar 7 2008 7:43 pm
From: Gary Smith
Randy/ENTS
The Ohio big tree list you linked to in your initial post is well
done.
Spring Grove Cemetary and Arboretum in Cincinnati really is a must
for
a tree lover. A quick count of the Ohio list shows something like 10
champs living there.
Gary
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