Northern White Cedars, MN Lee E. Frelich
Jul 10, 2003 11:02 PDT 

ENTS:

If you are interested in old growth and ancient northern white cedars,
there is an article by John Myers in the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer
that came out today. You can view it at:

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/julaug03/ancientcedars.html

The only things missing in the web version are a couple of pictures,
including a great picture of an ancient cedar grove with flames behind it
and a fire fighter spraying water on the cedars during the fire last
September.

At the end of the article there is an essay about why old growth is
important entitled 'Keep the old' , by Kim Chapman, one of our former
graduate students and former stewardship director for the MN Chapter of
Nature Conservancy, and a link to the MN Department of Natural Resources
Old Growth web page that talks about policy and management issues of
state-owned old growth.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/forests/oldgrowth/index.html

Lee
MN old growth Lee E. Frelich
 Jul 11, 2003 06:09 PDT 

Bob et al.:

Did you see that basswood tree pictured in the MN Department of Natural
Resources old growth website, on the 'What is old growth?' page.
OMG! I didn't know trees could grow that big in MN. I will have to find
out what site that is and pay a visit. Ditto for the 55 inch dbh white
pine shown at Itasca on the 'Visit an old growth forest' page, and the
'Lost 40' white pine stand shown on the same page. This particular stand
was not cut because of a survey error, and 40 acres did not show up on any
plats. I believe the large white pine in the photo is the 139 footer which
is now Minnesota's tallest known tree. It is probably the tallest in the
eastern U.S. for its latitude of 47.5 as well, although I would guess that
there could be some 145 footers in the stand if it was more thoroughly
measured. My assistant Scott Weyenberg has been to these sites to measure
trees, while I have been stuck in the office writing papers.

The website is:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/forests/oldgrowth