Millstone Trees

[Edward Frank]

My friend Dale Luthringer recently published to the ENTS discussion list a Rucker Index for the Clarion River corridor in PA. A Rucker Index is the average of the heights of the tallest tree for each of the ten tallest species in area. Most of the numbers were from the flood plain areas of Cook Forest State Park, some from Clear Creek State Park, and a couple from other areas. A road runs along the side of most of the upstream length of the Clarion River (about 100 miles long total). I was hoping to find a sycamore tall enough to bump up the RI number, and I wanted to try to broaden the number of species on the list. Near the abandonned turn of the century lumber town of Millstone is a series of dispersed campsite in part of Allegheny National forest. At a pull-off I saw some relaly big hawthorns. These are a small thorny tree that most people look at without thinking. Dale, Tony Kelly, and I had found the largest Dotted Hawthorn reported in the country in the Allegheny River Islands Wilderness last fall. It was 45.6 feet tall. Here were dozens of big hawthorns, perhaps a dozen of them in the same size range.

I got out and started to walk around. A pair of joggers told me there were some big old trees farther up the road. A hundred yards or so down the road was a fat red oak, 16' 4" in girth, but only standing 78 feet tall. I walked around and measured several hawthorn in the 40 to 45 foot range. I found a red oak 13 feet around and 106 feet tall. This isn't a record, but it is a size that s reached only uncommonly and another 12 x 100 for Dale's listings. There was a tall skinny apple tree about 40 feet tall. This must have been from an old farmstead of orchard. Apples are not native to the US but are originally from what is now called Kazakhstan in Asia. I found a white oak 14' 8" in girth and from underneath I measured a height of 103 feet. I couldn't find hat top again from off to the side, so t is questionable. Another tree is American Hornbeam. It is commonly called musclewood, because the bark surface is relatively smooth and the trunk forms muscle=like ripples up and down the tree.

What is really neat is that here and there are pockets of big trees even in areas that have been heavily impacted in the past by lumbering, interspersed with smaller second growth trees. It is like finding a treasure chest when you encounter a patch of big trees among the forest wastelands. Dale and I are planning a trip back next week to take more measurements and to clean up some of my data.

The PA DCNR online "Word on the Wild" newsletter this month features an article on Old Growth Forests in the Pennsylvania Wilds by the aforementioned Dale Luthringer.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/info/pawilds/wordonthewilds.aspx Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the article.