Pitch Pines  
  

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TOPIC: Pitch Pines
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/99e48eb00498f459?hl=en
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== 1 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 9:59 am
From: James Parton

Dale, ENTS.

Around here Pitch Pines are often called " Black Pines " along with
Shortleaf & Virginia pines. If found around here Jack Pine would be
considered part of that group too. Then there are the Southern Yellow
Pines like Longleaf, Loblolly & Slash. Then there is White Pine which
is in a group by itself. This is the Southern Appalachian Redneck
classification of pines!

Here are the biggest Pitch Pines I've found.

7' 7" CBH 119.8 Feet Tall. Kellogg Center

6. 3 1/2 CBH Paris Woods

5' 8 1/4 CBH Connemara

Has anyone ever heard of one reaching 10 Ft in circumference? That
would really be a whopper! The only pine I have seen around here that
big are White Pines.

James Parton

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On Feb 15, 11:00 pm, "Dale Luthringer" wrote:
> Bob,
>
> 84 for pitch pine is pretty nice for you neck of the woods.  Funny you
> should mention about where to look for possible exemplary pitch pine.
> Whenever I make a trip east to DE H2O Gap, Hartford, Holyoke, etc.
> (doesn't happen too often), I always pass a nice pitch pine on I-80, in
> the vicinity of Hazelton (not exactly sure, could be 30 miles off).
> I've been itching to get out an measure it for years now, but I'm always
> doing "65" in that stretch and can never find a good place to pull off
> without the fear of drawing too much attention from the boys in the
> "black & white" cars.  I'm often past it before I notice it.  I'm
> thinking it ought to come close to 6ft CBH x 90ft.  I bet we can find a
> 100 footer somewhere in central/eastern PA.
>
> Another spot I often see some dandy pitch pine is extreme NE PA on I-84,
> not far from the Jersey line.  
>
> BTW, spied a nice little old growth Atlantic white cedar stand at High
> Point State Park in NJ.  Could very well go into the 300 year age class.
> Bill Sweeney gave me the heads-up on my way to Hartford.  Also, the
> Pinchot Sycamore was AWWESOOOOME !!!!!!!!  I could only model a portion,
> but easily catalogued just over 1000 cubes!  More to come.  I tried
> calling you from Hartford last night, but I only had your old number on
> me.  Could hardly contain myself.  The Grandby Oak was wicked.  Gots
> some cool pics I'll send you.  Thanks for the heads-up!
>
> Dale
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
> Bob leverett
> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 9:07 AM
> > Subject: [ENTS] Re: Cook Forest update
>
> Dale,
>
>      Thanks for the update. That Colorado blue spruce is a humdinger.
> BTW, I was especially interested in the news about the pitch pines in
> Cook. As my health permits and as part of the tree height measuring
> method comparison study, I intend to collect a lot of data from
> Massachusetts on pitch pines and I won't have to travel far to do it.
> The Westfield township, about 12 miles south of Florence, has many
> handsome pitch pines, some quite old. A number of week back, I measured
> a pitch pine behind the house Rob is living in to 84 feet in height and
> he says there are many in the area of similar height and possibly
> taller. The sandy soils of the region are ideal for pitch pine. There
> are some in Florence, but no major stands. Then there is the Montague
> Pine Plains to the north and east of Florence. The Pine Plains a large
> area covered in pitch pines that don't look very old to me. I think
> Harvard Forest did a study of the region several years ago. Then eas
> tern Mass has plenty of pitch pines.
>       I don't know where the best place to look for a new champion might
> be, but Westfield is as good of a place to start as I know of.  There is
> also a vast area of pitch pine-dominated habitat west of Albany, NY.
> I've zipped through it many times on I90. I don't know where to get good
> access though to prime areas. It would be good to get a New
> York-Pennsylvania-New England competition going, though. I need to get
> back to Mount Tom to measure the height champ there - if I can find it
> again.  
>
> Bob
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> From: "Dale Luthringer" <djluthrin...@pennswoods.net>
> ENTS,
>
>
> The second was one of our 90ft class pitch pines at the entrance to Fire
> Tower Rd.  Last measured on 1/25/07 to 5.6ft CBH x 90.9ft high, it now
> stands at 5.6ft CBH x 91.5ft high.  I've been measuring this tree since
> 4/30/04 and it has only grown 0.1ft in girth in 3 years, but 3.6ft in
> height in the same time frame.  I also cored the tree this time and put
> it to ~65 years at breast height.  I feel we'll eventually find a pitch
> pine in PA that'll break 100ft.  Scott Wade's probably got one in his
> pocket down there, just waiting for me to post this note.
>
> I also finally found the old state champ pitch pine that reportedly died
> sometime in the 1980's, well before the 1993 PFA PA Big Tree pub was put
> out.  I've been trying to find this elusive tree for the last 10 years.
> I was always looking on the ground, but was absolutely blown away when I
> found the tree still standing.  I must say, I did not find it on my own,
> repeated directions from Greg Rearick, initial nominator, and extra eyes
> that were along from our interpretive program spied this beauty, still
> with much of the bark on.  Even dead, it still is the largest girth
> pitch pine we have on record at Cook Forest at 6.3ft CBH x 93.2ft high.
> This tree has been dead for close to 20 years and still is the 2nd
> tallest known pitch pine in PA, if not the northeast.  You can actually
> see the tree from the Fire Tower Road at 41 19.863N x 79 12.906W, but
> you must really keep your eyes peeled.; The bark on this pitch pine was 
> deeply furrowed, and resembled a plating character reminiscent of ~200 year 
> red pine that I cored in the Lebo Run N.A. The trunk is not stable though, 
> and if we had the right wind, would probably take it down.  Exposed 
>trunk without the bark is very > punky.  
>
> See ya'all.  I'm off to CT this week for the 4th HWA Symposium.  Hope to
> have some neat stuff to report, but at this rate in my backlog of data,
> it might take me 4 months to get to it.
>
> Dale

== 2 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 11:58 am
From: doug bidlack


Dale, Bob,

It's amazing that you're starting to talk about pitch
pine and atlantic white cedar. Just last month I was
thinking of which trees to concentrate on measuring in
southeastern MA. These were the two trees that came
to mind first.

My wife, Ellen, is currently volunteering to write a
brochure for the Nature Conservancy on pine barrens of
Massachusetts. So naturally we've been talking alot
about pitch pines and visiting some nice pitch pine
forests in the area.

Atlantic white cedar swamps are very cool places.
They are also very important habitat for a mosquito
known as Culiseta melanura. Culiseta melanura is the
most important bird vector of Eastern Equine
Encephalitis virus (EEE). Although EEE is mainly a
bird disease, it is occasionally spread to humans in
bad years and it is often fatal. Since Ellen and I
are both entomologists that work for mosquito control
districts, we tend to spend a fair amount of time in
atlantic white cedar swamps. I was hoping to combine
tree measuring with my job by attempting to find a
relationship between atlantic white cedar swamps (size
of swamp, age of trees, size of trees, etc.) and
number of EEE positive mosquito (Culiseta melanura)
pools from adjacent swamps.

I know High Point State Park and the atlantic white
cedar swamp there very well. A friend studied EEE and
Culiseta melanura in that swamp and compared it to the
more well known and much larger atlantic white cedar
swamps of southern New Jersey. Ellen also studied EEE
and Culiseta melanura in New Jersey for her Masters
degree. The trees down in southern New Jersey are a
good bit larger than anything I've yet seen in
Massachusetts.

A couple of other cool trees to measure for
southeastern MA might be black tupelo and american
holly. Black tupelo is common as dirt in SE MA, but
they're mostly quite small. American holly is not
nearly as common, but it's so cool to see such a
southern tree in MA.

Doug

== 3 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 12:01 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com


Doug:

Have you found any mistletoe in the tupelo?

Russ

== 4 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 12:16 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net


Doug,

There are some pretty decent sized pitch pines in western MA. The tallest I've measured is 92.0 feet and 5.0 feet in circumference. The tree grows in the Mount Tom State Reservation. The above referenced measurement was taken several years ago. I expect to break that record in the Westfield area. I think 6 feet in girth represents the largest we have, but I don't know that for sure.

Bob

== 5 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 3:53 pm
From: doug bidlack

Russ,

I haven't noticed any mistletoe in the tupelo trees
that I've seen.

Doug

== 6 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 3:58 pm
From: doug bidlack


Bob,

I've seen a few pitch pines that I thought might be 2
feet in diameter at one site that we visited, but I'm
sure that they weren't even 80 feet in height. I
wonder if the pitch pines are fatter and shorter in
the southeastern part of the state?

Doug

== 7 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 5:04 pm
From: ForestRuss@aol.com


Thanks Doug....

== 8 of 8 ==
Date: Sun, Feb 17 2008 5:36 pm
From: dbhguru@comcast.net


Doug,

I'll soon begin collecting data on pitch pines in western Mass. I'll leave it to Andrew to cover the eastern part of the state beyond what you pick up.

Bob

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TOPIC: Will there be....
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/e70f4ab6bbd72e72?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Sat, Mar 22 2008 7:17 pm
From: BrianFromWare


Regarding Pitch Pine, we don't have many in this area of Central
Massachusetts, it's predomantly a pine-oak-hemlock forest, but we have
a few remnant trees that have survived, There is one in particular,
growing next to a marsh, that we recently measured at 76 " CBH and we
guess it's 70 ft. tall. This tree has a nice crown and multiple
leaders. I suspect it's not that tall because it's at the edge of a
marsh, and had little competition. The first branch is about 25 ft.
in height.

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Sat, Mar 22 2008 8:56 pm
From: James Parton


Brian,

Though generally neglected by people, I have always loved and
appreciated Pitch Pine. Lately I am always looking for sizeable ones.
76" is pretty big though I have seen ones considerably taller here in
WNC.

JP

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TOPIC: Will there be....
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/e70f4ab6bbd72e72?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 23 2008 6:12 am
From: dbhguru@comcast.net


Brian

In addition to the Montague Pine Plains, the Westfield floodplain is a good palce to see fairly impressive scatterings of pitch pines. CBHs of 5.5 to 6.5 are representative of the large ones. I've so far measured one to 83 feet. That's the tallest I've found in the Westfield area. Most mature pines are 60 to 75 feet. However, I measured a pitch pine on Mount Tom State Reservation a few years ago to 92 feet. That's the best I've done in New England. Today, my wife Monica and I are going to try to relocate the tree and remeasure it.

Bob

 

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TOPIC: Cook Forest update & trip east
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/99e48eb00498f459?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 23 2008 12:33 pm
From: BrianFromWare


Regarding Pitch pines in Western Massachusetts, We found one on a
neighbor's property by a marsh. It measured 76" CBH and appears to be
about 70 ft in height.
It is growing with little competition and has multi leaders, with a
nice crown. I'd be glad to show it to anyone who is interested, it's
in Ware, MA. I'd be interested if someone could give me a rough age
of the tree, they don't seem to be a quick growing tree.

Brian