ENTS
Today was an excellent day to spend in the woods. I finally
met up
with Mike Dunn, one of our newer Ents. Turns out that Mike and
I went
to the same elementary schools and he lived down the street from
me!
Funny how that works out. Anyway, we met at the Springfield
mall and
then drove over to the college. Swarthmore is an old quaker
liberal
arts college just outside of Springfield Pa., in Delaware Co.
It is
home to the Scott Arboretum and a few champion trees. Running
along
the back of the campus is the Crum Creek that empties into the
Delaware river. Crum is dutch for crooked. This creek has cut
a
steep gorge over the centuries and has provided an optimal site
for
trees to get tall. I was introduced to the area by the staff of
the
arboretum when they showed me a tulip poplar (previously
reported)
down in the woods along the creek. I was intrigued and vowed to
return. It is the first tree listed.
We started off looking for the tulip that I could not get a
height on
when it was in leaf. After we measured it we decided to go for
a
Rucker index for the site. Here is what we found:
Tulip 16.5 x 153.0
Tulip 13.1 x 147.2
Cherry about 6.0 in cbh x 111.9 (P. avium)
Pignut Hickory 7.1 x 133.9
Pignut Hickory 7.4 x 127.8
Bitternut Hickory 8.3 x 113.6
White Ash 9.2 x 134.2
Chestnut Oak twin x 118.3
Sycamore about 7 x 132.9
White Pine about 6 x 131.7
Hemlock 104.4
Black Gum about 95'
American Beech 97.6
American Beech 112.4
Red Oak 15.1 x 130.1
Mockernut Hickory 7.8 x 115.4
trees with estimated girth were across the creek.
The top ten provide a Rucker of 127.5 Which is one of the
biggest I
have ever reported. It would have been alot lower, but Mike
found a
monster red oak on the way out that we initially missed because
we
were looking for the big tulip!
Other species present but not measured:
Red, Silver and Norway Maple
Paulownia
Witch Hazel
Hornbeam
Dogwood
Spicebush
Rhodo max
Plenty of invasives includung:
Japanese Knotweed
Japanese Barberry
English Ivy
Burning Bush
among others.
The local folks are making efforts to rid the place of
invasives, but
we all know how that goes. There are many saplings of all of
the
trees mentioned, so the deer must not be too bad.
Mike is a class act and I enjoyed spending the better part of
the day
with him. I am looking forward to venturing out more with him.
We
just have to get George in the group and we can really cover
some
ground!
Scott Wade and Mike Dunn