Porters Creek, TN   Will Blozan   May 05, 2002 18:55 PDT  Ents, Michael Davie and I searched up in the Porters Creek area in the Greenbrier District, Great Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park today. Overall, the forest was fine and a beautiful day, but no new surprises or records. In fact, much of the areas we searched were primarily American chestnut morgues; large stems strewn about in massive quantities. The big chestnut trees were gone from the canopy and most of what remained were scattered tuliptree, hemlock, and red maple. It reminded us very much of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. In parts, a tad depressing actually. The finds are as follows, all new to the ENTS list and my personal records: Tuliptree          10.5'    145.5' White ash        9'        129' Tuliptree          12'       156' Amer. beech    8'2"      114.5' N.red oak        8'7"      133.4' (saw 3 over 14' cbh x mid 120's) Tuliptree         16'2"     158.7' Tuliptree         13'8"     149' Hemlock         11'2"    148.3' Black cherry   12'2"    125.6' HUGE! (for Dale;) Tuliptree         14'2"    142.1' Tuliptree         7'1"      147.6' Tuliptree         9'10"    148.6' Tuliptree        15'3"     151.7' Tuliptree        13'9"     147.7' N. red oak      8'6"      123.3' Tuliptree        16'1"     156.6' Tuliptree        14'3"     155 White ash      9'2"      125.2 Tuliptree        21'3"     162.3' Very luscious and vigorous top. Yes, cbh is correct. Has interesting codominant stem. Hemlock       10'        140' Red maple     9'2"      131.6' Hemlock       13'7"     139.3' Probably close to 1000 ft3 On the way out we measured two second growth tuliptrees. One, a dominant, soared to 141.6 feet. Another, an intermediate tree was 121.25 feet tall and only .9769' in diameter. The height to diameter ratio is 124.1! These second growth trees are less than 65 years old. I think that several 150's are possible and a H/D ratio of 130 for tuliptree is possible. Sweetgum will likely break 120' in the second growth areas as well. Will   Home