Chauga River/Crooked Creek   Jess   Oct 25, 2002 20:01 PDT  The Chauga River and its tributary Crooked Creek flow through the Sumter NF in northwestern South Carolina. Clearcuts occupy large areas of the ridges between the streams, but little logging has occurred along the drainages or in the associated coves in the past few decades. Hemlock forest with rhododendron understory is common along the section of the Chauga River I saw, but white pines with an understory of flowering dogwood, American holly and various seedlings occupied one large flat. The mortality rate of these heavily shaded dogwoods appears to be low. Both hemlock and hardwood dominated forests grow along crooked creek. North aspect coves in the area tend to have conifer canopies while hardwoods are more prolific in the south facing coves. Rhododendron, with a few scattered stewartias, grow under the conifers, and bigleaf snowbell and red bud occur in the more open hardwood understories. Species cbh height Oak, Black 7'6" ~113' Oak, White 7'4.5" ~122' Oak, White 5'3" 122.4' Oak, White 6'6" ~125' Oak, White 6'10" ~126' Oak, ? 6'5" ~128' Pine, Shortleaf 8'2" 105'+ Pine, White 8'2" ~140.8' Snowbell 7" 20.0' By looking around the area more thoroughly, another handful of 120' white oaks could probably be found. The shortleaf pine is at the edge of an area of mixed oaks and shortleaf. The total height of the tree may be around 120'. Most of the other shortleafs in the area are noticeably smaller in diameter, but several of them may top 120'. I saw one other shortleaf that could be larger overall. A sparse canebrake also grows on the slope under the pines and oaks. The white pine is typical of the pines at the back edge of the large flat, but there was large variance in the diameters. Some trees in the stand exceed 10' cbh and a few could brake 150'; however, they will not catch up to the trees at the Walhalla Fish Hatchery few a few more decades. The unidentified oak has me puzzled. At first glance, I mistook the tree for a white oak, but that didn't feel right. When I paid a little more attention to the tree, I noticed all of the leaves closely resembled chestnut oak. The bark reminded me of post oak more than any other species. The tree grows on a small bench about 100' above a small stream in the midst of several tall white oaks. I did not find any acorns that I could associate with the tree. The tree does not remind me few chinkapin oaks I have seen. The applies to the swamp chestnut oaks in the Congaree. The only other possibility I can think of is a chestnut oak/white oak hybrid since chestnut oaks grow on the adjacent slope top.   Home