Intro Jon Parker Jon Parker
August 18, 2009

First post.
I joined the ENTS group a month or two ago and have been, and probably
will stay, more of a lurker here as I'm a layman when it comes to
forests, and have a hard time finding ways out of the big city, but
over the last few years my interests in forests has grown a lot.  I
thought I would share a couple of large tree photos I've taken over
the last couple of years:

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First:
This is the only photo here not in the Eastern region of the United
States... it's an old Kapok tree in the Mamiraua reserve in
west-central Amazonia, in Brazil (taken in March 2008).  I believe
it's also called a Ceiba tree, and in Portuguese it's called a
Saumauma tree.  Although there were a lot of HUGE trees in the Amazon,
this one stood out from the others from what I had seen up close;
there had been logging of the giant trees in the region for years
before this type was granted protected status.  I can't tell you how
tall it was but the trunk was at least six feet across many feet up to
the first branches.  I have read that these can grow to over 200 feet
tall.

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Second:
I believe this is an American Elm tree, the photo was taken last
summer along the Thompson Pond trail near Stissing Mountain in Duchess
County, NY.  It was certainly the widest tree I saw along the trail,
although there could have been others as I only went about halfway
around the lake trail.

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Third:
Again, I could be mis-identifying the tree, but I'm pretty sure this
photo, taken in September 2008,  features a Sycamore tree.  If so it
was easily the largest I've ever seen up close... it's hard to get
perspective on it since I was alone, so sorry no human comparison is
possible!  It hangs over Big Walnut Creek in Putnam County, Indiana,
and I found it walking along the Tall Timbers Trail of the Big Walnut
Preserve.

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Fourth:
Also from the same preserve, further inland from the creek.  I was
floored by this place, not least because I had grown up only 10
minutes away and had only known about it for the first time just last
year, when I was browsing the Nature Conservancy's website for places
to hike while I visited! (I live in NYC now).  It really lives up to
its name Tall Timbers, at least part of it is virgin forest.  To
imagine that the whole central region of my home state used to look
like this is a real revelation for me.  The thick tall trunk in the
background is a huge tulip tree growing there.  I wish I could
estimate the height but as I said before I'm just a layman when it
comes to trees!


Keep up the interesting work here ENTS!
Jon

Continued at:

http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/64e66e7cfa60daf0?hl=en