Congaree Swamp, November  2004

I had the privilege to spend three days in Congaree National Park (formerly Congaree Swamp National Monument) with Ed Coyle, Jess Riddle, and Jason Childs. The weather was cold but reasonable and graciously mosquito-free! We revisited several known trees and hunted new areas. We found new height records and lost former champions. Much has changed in the swamp since my last visit, and the influence of hurricanes was more and more evident. Much of the area we traversed was pummeled, with very few large trees left.  However, the gems are to be found here and there, and we managed to locate a few. 

Will Blozan,  Nov 14-16, 2004  Full Trip Report

Congaree Swamp, November 2004 (page 2)

 

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 Will Blozan and the 140' Shumardo Oak.  cbh ~15"

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 140' Swamp chestnut oak trunk.  Probably the finest tree encountered was the absolutely gorgeous, massive, and tall swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii). Ed and I both went nuts over them, and measured virtually every one we saw. Trees over 130' were commonplace, and we confirmed one to 140.3' tall. The remnant acorn caps were so huge, 1.25" diameter, that I would consider wearing a hardhat during nut-fall. Not an acorn was to be found, and the ground beneath every tree looked to be tilled by feral hogs.

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 Ed Coyle getting a sighting on the 140' swamp chestnut oak.

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 150' sweetgum.-- I was busy trying to remeasure a sweetgum (Liquidamber styraciflua) I had measured to 157.1' tall several years ago. I was only able to get 150' by shooting straight up from underneath, and 149.8' from a distance away. I am not sure what the difference is (crown breakage?) but I am hereby discarding the higher figure. - Will

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 Big sweetgum.

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 168' loblolly.  Maximum dimensions for loblolly pine we have found in the Congaree are 173' tall and 16' in girth. We do not know of a tree with either dimension currently alive, with 168.7' tall and 15'7" girth the current maximums known. We have not measured all the pines by any means but the chances of finding larger-girthed trees are slim- a taller tree likely but not much taller. Without a doubt, they are the tallest species in the park. - Will

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 Burl-belly swamp chestnut oak.

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 155' Truffula trees.

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 Classic huge pine crown.

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 Ed Coyle and a 130'+ swamp chestnut oak.

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 Ed Coyle and the fat pine.   This loblolly pine near Weston Lake was 227 years old when cored in 1992 it. It was older than that, however, since the center could not be reached with a 32" increment borer. We can say that tree will be at least 240 years old in the 2005 growing season. It was significantly older than all the others. We projected the potential number of years to the pith, 20 years in this case. In working up the estimates to the pith, we figured those numbers slightly overestimated the number of rings to the pith. I think we put that in the paper - hope so. The next oldest loblolly was in the 190s in 1992. The next cluster of loblolly ages was in the 170s-early 180 years old. If we could figure out the number of rings to the center [see below] and coring height, we might see that it is starting to get near to the maximum age for the species. I think max age is ~ 250 years for loblolly. - Neil Pederson

Fallen log.