| White
Pine Heights and where it all leads |
Robert
Leverett |
| Feb
28, 2005 07:24 PST |
Mike:
Thanks for your superb discovery and
measurement efforts. The number
of 180-foot white pines in the Smoky Mountains gradually climbs,
but
with the exception of the Boogerman Pine (207), no 190s. So, it
seems
like 180-189 feet is the normal white pine ceiling for the
Smokies. And
170-179, within the Smokies, is the comparable tuliptree
ceiling.
When we consider how much searching we in ENTS
have done
collectively, these apparent upper height range limits become
more and
more trustworthy. Eventually, we'll break 180 on a tuliptree,
but it
appears that tuliptrees in the 180+ class will only be
statistical
outliers. Is there historical precedent for our conclusions on
white
pine and tuliptree. Well, partially.
Gordon Whitney, a forest ecologist who was
with Harvard Forest a long
time before returning to his native Pennsylvania wrote a book
entitled
"From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain". At least,
I think that is
the name. In his book, Gordon listed maximum heights for the
white pine
as rarely over 180 and very rarely over 200 feet. I presume
sufficient
trees were measured on the ground to make the information
reliable. The
above height profile is what we're finding today for our old
friend
Pinus strobus. Questions we are left with to answer are: where
does the
white pine reach its maximum today and what is the pattern of
regional
maximums?
It will be Lee Frelich that ultimately answers
these two questions
based upon the kinds of in-depth analyses that a scientist of
his
caliber does. As we continue to build an ENTS repository of
species
height and circumference data, it will be fascinating to see
what
emerging patterns development and assign causal factors. For
example,
are there verifiable white pine hot spots - regions or places
where
white pine outperforms itself by an increment of say 10 or more
feet in
height and 2 to 3 feet in diameter? Will the Smoky Mountains,
parts of
Michigam and Wisconsin, a swath of Pennsylvania, and perhaps
isolated
pockets of New England and New York yield the hot spots? How
would we go
about verifying white pine capability for Virginia, West
Virginia,
Georgia, and perhaps areas of its western-most extension in
Illinois
when past patterns of land use and cutting would so strongly
influence
the outcome?
For instance, irrespective of past
exploitation, we still have
fairly large areas of western North Carolina and Tennessee where
mature
to old-growth white pines can be found. We have a scattering of
mature
white pine stands in New England and a miniscule acreage of old
growth.
Comparing white pine capability in New England to that in the
southern
Appalacians would have to statistically take into consideration
the past
land use histories leading to a relative abundance of mature
pines in
one region and a dearth in the other - at least I think it
would.
Fortunately, I don't have to worry about those factors. Thank
goodness
for Lee.
Bob
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