| Folks:
High up in the Sag Branch tulip, Feb 2004,
photo by Will Blozan
(material deleted) I
want to sing my old buddy's
praises. I just viewed an awesome video of Will Blozan, Michael
Davie and others
climbing 3 great trees: (1) a 167-foot Loblolly giant in
Congaree, (2) a
161-foot Hemlock in Walhalla, S.C., and (3) a 168 (almost) foot
Hemlock also
in Walhalla. The area of Hemlocks is on the East Fork of the
Chattooga
River. A close by White Pine tops 170 feet. My conclusion from
this video is
that one cannot truly know trees from ground level. The dry
descriptions of
growth from Oliver and Larson just don't hack it anymore. The
old growth
monarchs that Will climbs are so very much more than the
woody-stemmed
garden vegetables that Oliver and Larson describe. Will's trees
are
veritable hotels in the forest. They harbor so much, much more
life and
serve so many more functions than just storing carbon on the
stem.
Honestly, forest ecologists need to get up into the canopies of these
grand
trees and seriously study what is going on. It is absolutely amazing as to
what is
going on in the canopy of these trees. Ecologists who study from
the ground
are living in a two dimensional world and are missing a world
aloft. The
complexity and diversity of canopy life gives new meaning to
Bill Martin's
critique of designer old-growth, perhaps the ultimate human
silliness.
Experiments that seek to blow the tops out of trees to create
artificial
cavities for a select number of birds are misguided, if not down
right
pathetic. Will found whole colonies of polypody ferns growing on
limbs 140+
feet in the air. Caches of pine seeds. Lichen growth inches
thick. You name
it. A whole different world. Nobody who views these films of
Will's climbs
of these ancient trees can ever seriously view trees in an old
growth forest
as just over the hill versions of tame tree farm trees. The
wildness and
diversity of these magnificent southern Appalachian and southern
swamp
forests is amply revealed from Will's canopy shots. Looking
across the
Conagree from a perch 160 in the air shows the tops of giant
emergents. All
that was missing was the head of a T-Rex. The shots have that
effect.
Bob
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