Hocking Hills SP, OH   tpdig-@ysu.edu   Nov 23, 2004 14:29 PST  ENTS... The long-promised central Ohio report: Last Saturday students and I visited Hocking Hills State Park, reputed to contain Ohio's tallest trees, including a hemlock at 160' (doubtful, but obviously worth checking). The park sits astride erosion-resistant sandstone uplands that characterize much of SE OH. In some areas, the bedrock is strongly faulte and jointed, so streams have created very narrow and precipitous gullies, some over 200' deep. At Hocking Hills, softer underlying strata have eroded away, leaving magnificent recess caves for which the park is famous. Sounds like a good spot for tall trees eh? First, we descended the gorge near Old Man's Cave, site of the reported 160 footer. My skeptical self was hoping for 130' at least, but... Killer hemlock old growth! A small patch of gorge bottom and sides is covered with stunning old growth hemlock, fortunately spared from the heavy logging evident throughout the region. Some trees over 10' CBH had lower bark broken into thick plates not unlike those of an old-growth white pine. Cool! My students, who are plenty familiar with the flora of Ohio, were awestruck at seeing the familiar hemlock in such spectacular condition. Oh, I suppose you want some numbers... (BTW, if I don't give CBH, tree was across the creek) Hemlock, all old growth: 139.8' x 7' 0" middle aged, with lower branch stubs 137.7' across the creek and uphill 140.1' BIG tree, but across the creek 143.7' x 9' 7" sticks out, probably the reported 160-footer 144.7' x 12' 0" virtually no taper, HUGE mass of wood! Also, several old-growth tulip trees on the gorge slopes; probably trees with bole defects (several of theme) or too hard to reach. One was 127' (from below) x 12' 4", with 30'+ of balding. Later we could see this tree had an 18" blown out trunk at 100'. Musta been huge in its younger days. Continuing downstream the old growth receded quickly, but not the tall trees. Young to middle-aged tulips abound, some are coppiced stump sprouts. 139.4' x 6' 1" & 5' 10" (coppice) 140.2' x 8' 6" nice tree, but doesn't look much over 100 years 123.6' gnarled defect-ridden old timer left behind 133.3' 131.4' Planty of trees over 130', and I doubt I got the tallest ones. Might there be 150-footers down there? Excellent tall young sycamores are likewise abundant. Some of these trees look really young; perhaps as little as 50-70 years. They are 5 - 7' cbh and have very little gnarly or platy bark, and smooth exfoliated bark on most of the trunk. Zoar Valley's tall sycamores are slender, but older, and they have lots more gnarl. How tall? The tallest sprig in a nice grove across the creek was 146.1'. Yowzah! Hey, could we get 150' on these too? Well, needless to say we're going back to what will certainly be Ohio's tallest forest yet described, and which could go 130' for a Rucker Index. There is as much gorge left to explore as what we saw last weekend, so more surprises await. We need additional species though. There was at least one tall beech (110'+) and some nice yellow birches within the hemlock grove, and a few red oaks around (all youngish), but there was very little hardwood diversity. No white ash, no basswood, no maple of any kind. I don't know enough about the area to speculate whether the paucity of hardwoods has resulted from heavy and repeated harvest, or is a natural feature of this sandstone gully. The former wouldn't surprise me - the logging was really heavy in this area - but it doesn't explain why tulip and sycamore would be the only species to resprout and/or recruit after heavy logging. Oh well, just gives me more reason to go back. I'll get some photos next time as well. Tom More Hocking Hills, OH   tpdig-@ysu.edu   Apr 02, 2005 13:10 PST  Hello ENTS, Finally getting out to do some field work. I should be canvassing OH tall tree sites pretty intensively in the next month or so, before canopy leaf-out. Spent a productive day in Hocking Hills SP's sandstone gullies with a talented new grad student. Excellent data for on-going latitudinal gradient study, and we now have enough species for a Rucker Index. Great American sycamore site! Several floodplain groves similar in caliber to Zoar Valley's. American sycamore, some shot from below due to tough location: 1) 147.1' x 7' 0" 2) 139.2' x 7' 11" 3) 145.0' x 7' 8" 4) 142.0' x 9' 0" 5) 146.5' x 7' 8" AND... 6) 151.0' x 8' 11" yeah baby!!! We came across another beautiful grove, but none of its trees seemed to exceed 140' (I believe it's less sheltered). I initially (last fall) thought these sycamore groves might represent second growth, as there has certainly been much timber harvest in the park. However, as I've become attuned to riparian forest systems, I've become much more inclined to think these awesome groves are actually first growth floodplain woodlands. I also think they are older than I first suspected. First off, they're bigger than I estimated last fall from across the creek. Second, they've got some decent gnarl and extensive moss at their bases. In Zoar Valley we found that these tall slender sycamores can be older than suggested by their diameters (i.e., up to 190 years or more), so these OH trees may also be a bit older than expected, perhaps mid/upper-100s. Next... American beech, likely left unharvested due to its relatively poor timber value. 1) 122.5' x 7' 7" 2) 125.7' x 5' 9" 3) 120.3' x 6' 8" 4) 123.8' x unmeasured but ~7' 5) 128.1' x 8' 10" x ~80' crown Others... 1) sugar maple 116.6' x 6' 7" (few maples in gorge) 2) tulip tree 140.5' x 5' 3" (others of similar height last fall) 3) red oaks 110.5 x 6' 8", 116.6 x 9' 9" (OG tree), 123.5 x 6' 8" 4) black cherry 120.8' x 5' 6" 5) black birch 101.5' (from below) 6) Black tupelo 101.1' x 5' 6" 7) Red maple 109.0' x 6' 5" (larger of 2 stems) 8) yellow birch 88.2' x 7' 7" (gnarly old tree) And... recall hemlocks from 11/04 visit: 139.8' x 7' 0" middle aged, with lower branch stubs 137.7' across the creek and uphill 140.1' BIG tree, but across the creek 143.7' x 9' 7" sticks out, probably the reported 160-footer 144.7' x 12' 0" virtually no taper, HUGE mass of wood! Current Rucker Index for Hocking Hills State Park, OH: Sycamore 151' Hemlock 144.7' Tulip 140.5' Beech 128.1' NRO 123.5' Cherry 120.8' Sugar maple 116.6' Red maple 109.0' Black birch 101.5' Black tupelo 101.1' RI = 123.68' More to come, including pictures from this trip for ENTS Gallery. Tom RE: More Hocking Hills, OH   Will Blozan   Apr 03, 2005 04:09 PDT  Excellent, Tom! I find it very interesting that tuliptree does not dominate the Rucker Index. Perhaps it begins to lose dominance northward to other species that may perform (relatively) better at northerly latitudes. Will B RE: More Hocking Hills, OH   tpdig-@ysu.edu   Apr 03, 2005 13:21 PDT  Will, Yes, definitely a surprise that tulip does not hold its own with sycamore and/or hemlock. It might also be a logging issue - the only old tulips I've yet found have bole defects or are way up on precipitous slopes. The tall ones all look <100 years old. Tom RE: More Hocking Hills, OH   Robert Leverett   Apr 04, 2005 07:53 PDT  Will, Tom, et al: Whatever the explanation for the tuliptree playing second fiddle to the sycamore and hemlock at Hocking Hills, I doubt that it is latitude. The tuliptree is king of the woods in Zoar Valley and Green Lake State Park, both in NY - locations of higher latitude than Ohio. It is also king of the woods at the Vanderbilt Estate on the Hudson. Even as a young tree, it surpasses all other species in Monica's woods, Florence, MA, at only 7.5 miles from the species's northeastern most extension.    It is great to see more Rucker indices developed for areas that previously we have hardly touched. I look forward to seeing more coverage for Arkansas and Missouri. I would also love to see data from the floodplain areas of Indiana and Illinois, especially for silver maple and cottonwood. An east-west portrayal for the fertile river valley's especially interests me. Bob RE: More Hocking Hills, OH   Neil Pederson   Apr 04, 2005 09:04 PDT  How close to a Great Lake is Hocking Hills  versus Zoar Valley and Green Lakes? A common geographic theme for Zoar, Green Lake and the Vanderbilt Estate is that they are within a climate influenced by a large body of water, which should moderate temperature extremes and increase the moisture supply. That might cloud the latitude relationship, if there is one. Would Hocking hills be within this lake effect belt or might it be in a somewhat more continental climate? Lake Effect intro: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/buf/lakeffect/lakeintro.html     Neil   Home