| Northern
Ohio Commentary |
Steve
Galehouse |
| Jul
14, 2006 07:21 PDT |
If you get to northeastern Ohio, a couple of major sites worth
seeing
are Little Mountain in Lake County, http://www.holdenarb.org/cons.htm
,
an elevated sandstone plateau with a beautiful white
pine/hemlock/beech-maple forest--a portion of it is managed by
Holden
Arboretum, and Johnson's Woods near Wooster (formerly known as
Graber's
woodlot), with a mature flatland oak/hickory forest with trees
4'-5' in diameter
and 120' tall http://www.ohiodnr.com/dnap/location/johnson_woods.html
.
Also nice areas in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the
Akron and
Cleveland Metropark systems. If ENTS types are in NE Ohio on
Sunday
7/21, I'd love to try to meet up with you.
Steve Galehouse, Bay Village OH
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Fores-@aol.com
wrote:
Bob:
If you get to Ohio, try to see if you can find some old
burr oak.
From what I have seen they grow better in OH than
anywhere else and
they have been favored for so long that some of the old
farms have
retained impressive stands.
Russ
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| Re:
Northeastern Ohio |
Randy
Brown |
| Jul
17, 2006 17:50 PDT |
I grew up in NW Ohio and yes Bur Oak is very prominent. Battling
it
out with Red Oak and Swamp White oak for largest oak in most
woodlots
(with a few exceptional chinquapins here and there). Most of the
trees you see in farmers fields are either Burr or Swamp White.
As far as 'finding some nice stands' on private property, good
luck.
Grain prices have not been kind to family farm and the woodlots
have
been heavily utilized for income. Since 1980 the many good
woodlots
in this part of the state have been high graded. The ones that
aren't hit by their owners are eventually hit by their heirs
(often
to pay inheritance taxes I've heard). Most of what you will see
is a
few massive wolf trees around the edges and a scattering of 2-4'
diameter stumps in the interior. The really unfortunate thing is
that these oaks trees are not regenerating because of fire
suppression. Most woodlots are selectively logged and the
smallish
light gaps favor the regeneration of Ash, basswood, elm, &
sugar
maple. The few exceptions to this rule are the few woodlots that
ceased being used for heavy grazing in the last 20 years. The
grazing kept the stands quite open, almost savannah-like. In
these
areas you will see a lot young oak and Black Walnut, with a good
dose
of ash and elm.
Most Elm trees in this part of the state live perhaps 20, maybe
years. The elm can dominate a freshly cut patch
of woods or a fence
row and then they will all die over the course of 5 years. You
can
often watch dutch elm methodically march down a fence row. Death
of
individual trees is typically quite rapid. Often a small tree
say
8'-12' in diameter and ~30'-40' tall can go from a few
suspicious
yellow leaves to a mass of crispy brown dead leaves in 4-8
weeks.
The Ohio Nature preserve system does have a few nice woodlots
that
are preserved. The most impressive by far is Goll Woods in far
Northwest Ohio. I've been to both Goll and
Johnson Woods and IMHO
the tree in Goll Woods are much more visually impressive (though
I
haven't actually measured the trees). You'll also find a few
hollow
cottonwoods holding out against the greater longevity of the
Oaks.
Here too the understory is dominated by Maples.
http://www.ohiodnr.com/dnap/location/goll_woods.html
The next most impressive is Gross Woods. It has a few oaks as
large
as Goll Woods but the woodlot is a lot smaller, with fewer
exceptionally large trees. I was there
two winters ago after a
serious Ice Storm. The Oaks were unfazed, but
the fine lattice of
beech twigs resulted in massive destruction of the beeches. Many
were almost devoid of small leaf bearing limbs. The
preserve is
actually half of a formally contiguous woodlot. If you jump the
line
fence you find the remains of the other half of the forest that
was
logged off before it could be preserved. Small trees and big
stumps.
http://www.ohiodnr.com/dnap/location/gross_woods.html
And the runners up being Sears & Carmean woods which consist
of a
nice stand of ~3-4' diameter oaks (mostly white) along a river
bluff. One riverside oak tree had a 3/8" braided cable
wrapped
tightly around it's base, with its loose end trailing into the
river. I visited this tree ~10 years apart. On the first visit
the
cable was visibly girdling the tree, and the crown looked a
little
stressed. On the second visit the tree had engulfed perhaps 1/3
of
the cable, and appeared to be in good health again. I cut the
cable
off anyway. The alarming popping noises the cable strands made
as I
cut them gave witness to the tension in the cable.
Also of some interest is Lawrence woods which is of local
interest.
First because of it's acreage. At ~500 acres of contiguous
forest
it's by far the largest in the county (most are 20-40 acres,
with
perhaps a few 100 acre lots with multiple owners). It
was formerly
managed by a single family. Second the uniform
size of the trees
throughout, 2-3' in diameter and maybe 80'-90' tall. Unlike most
woodlots the population of wolf trees is almost zero. I imagine
it
must have been practically flattened some 100-120 years ago for
such
uniform regeneration of oak. Roughly a 1/3 of
it was selectively
logged in the last 15-20 years or so, but many good trees were
left
for the next rotation. Fortunately, the state
acquired the property
almost on the eve of it's liquidation. When the
paint was still
fresh, you could follow the path the timber cruisers took
through the
woods, marking off some 3000 trees.
Randy Brown
|
| Cottonwood
photos |
Steve
Galehouse |
| Jul
19, 2006 07:13 PDT |
| RE:
Cottonwood photos |
Robert
Leverett |
| Jul
19, 2006 10:06 PDT |
Steve,
Very impressive. It is now apparent to me that
Ohio still has
isolated patches of very impressive trees that need to be
documented by
ENTS. I had not understood the number of small 50 to 150 acres
areas of
mature to old growth woodlands in Ohio. You and Randy Brown have
really
opened some eyes - mine in particular.
Bob
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