Towering Tulips, Middleton Estate, Gladwyne, PA  
  

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TOPIC: towering tulips
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/t/688aa62675547a9b?hl=en
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== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Nov 22 2008 3:05 pm
From: treedunn@gmail.com


November 22, 2008
Ents,

I had some time during work today to measure some trees on the
Middleton estate in Gladwyne PA. We do a lot of work on this property
and have always marveled at these towering tulips. Surprisingly some
of the largest trees on the property sit atop the ridgeline. However,
the largest was mid slope. The area is just covered with trees over
100 feet and the largest I could find are as follows:

Tulips
138.1
128.9
127.6
124.0

Ill be doing some dbh’s once I get a new tape, but the 128 tulip is
probably pushing 45 inches for about 80 feet up the trunk. It’s a
truly impressive tree. This site has a few hundred trees so I will
definitely be recording more data here in the future.

Michael B. Dunn


== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Nov 22 2008 3:35 pm
From: "Edward Frank"


Mike,

More numbers! It is great to have another person actively measuring trees in that area of the state. It will give Scott some competition. Most of our formulas and compilations use the girth of the tree in feet and tenths or feet and inches rather than diameters. because the diameter tape has the built in assumption that the tree is perfectly round. So when it converts the girth to diameter it yields numbers that are higher than actual effective diameter of the tree. So you don't need to buy a fancy dbh tape to generate numbers for the list. A cheap one from a hardware store works fine. The hook on the live end of the tape does work slick for hooking into the bark when measuring, but is not an absolute necessity (mine doesn't have one).

Those are respectable heights for PA tuliptrees. Some of the best sites here in western PA top out in the upper 140's, most don't have trees that tall. The tallest documented in the state is in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia at 158.6. Dale Luthringer tells me that he finds the tallest trees right at the base of the slope especially along river corridors. I hope you will compile some Rucker Indexes for eastern PA. We only have one I believe from that end of the state. A Rucker Index if the numerical average of the tallest example from each of the ten tallest species on the site. There was a short article about the Rucker Index in the last ENTS Bulletin. I am encouraging people to measure as many species as possible even beyond the minimal ten species. http://www.nativetreesociety.org/measure/rucker_index_thoughts.htm The more detail on a site the better, but whatever you can squeeze in on trip is good. Jess Riddle does remarkable reports describing the everything from the geology and hydrology of a site to the undergrowth and herbaceous species, to the tallest trees on a site. Will Blozan and several others also excel in this area. Photos are good to include with site and tree description. Some people are on dial-up connections, so we try to keep the posts as small as possible with relatively small sized and compressed photos included in the post. Larger versions or more photos can always be sent to me individually via email and posted with the text to the website when I do the next round of updates.

Welcome to the world (according to the Virginia Big Tree Site) of tree measuring fanatics.

Ed Frank

Join the Primal Forests - Ancient Trees Community at:
http://primalforests.ning.com/


== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Sat, Nov 22 2008 3:55 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
When you get to bigger trees, you might want to employ a trick foresters have used for years...go to your favorite local hardware store and pick up a horseshoe nail...a pair of pliers will bend the nail around the tape's bail, and the rest can be bent into a rudimentary hook that works well in all kinds of bark (well, hickory can be tough...). Also used a lot with another forester tool, the logger's tape, where you stick the hook into the bark and walk out to your prescribed distance (of course, this is for those who haven't been able yet to invest in higher tech equipment).-

DonRB