Leader
for today’s Ramble: Roger Collins
Authors of today’s Ramble report: Roger and Linda. Comments, edits, and
suggestions for the report can be sent to Linda at Lchafin@uga.edu.
Insect
and Fungi identifications: Don
Hunter
Link to Don’s Facebook album for this Ramble. All
the photos that appear in this report, unless otherwise credited, were taken by
Don Hunter. Photos may be enlarged by clicking them with a mouse or tapping on
your screen.
Today’s emphasis: Roger Collins shared with us the results of his ongoing research into the land use history of the Botanical Garden, a project that has involved research into tax and property ownership records, dendrochronology, newspaper archives, and reading and interpreting the appearance of trees, soil, and landscape. Citing all these types of evidence, he discussed the changes in the landscape, from initial clearing and planting in the late 1700s, through the recovery that has been going on for the past 90 years.
Number
of Ramblers today: 35
Reading: Roger read a poem, Can You Imagine?, by Mary Oliver
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer’s night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now—whenever
we’re not looking. Surely you can’t imagine
they don’t dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade—surely you can’t imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can’t imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.
Show and Tell: Bill brought a copy of the new Georgia mushroom field
guide, “Field Guide to the Mushrooms of Georgia”, by Alan Bessette, Arleen Bessette,
and Michael Hopping.
Announcements:
Linda
reminded us of the opening reception for the Sandy Creek Nature Center
art exhibit, “50 Years: Inspired by Nature,” in the Bogue Gallery (second floor, beyond the computers) at the Athens-Clarke
County Library, Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. The exhibit includes work by ramblers
Susie Criswell and Don Hunter, among many others. The exhibit will be up
through August 1.
Don
mentioned that Sally Bethea’s book “Keeping the Chattahoochee: Reviving and
Defending a Great Southern River,” is now available from UGA Press.
Today’s
Route: From the Children’s Garden, we walked
through the Lower Shade Garden, and crossed the road to the White Trail spur
and the right-of-way, and from there to the first section of the Blue Trail.
Pre-Ramble
Observations: Don arrived early and photographed
fungi on the mulched path from the upper parking lot and insects in the
Children’s Garden.
 |
| Blewits, a beautiful and tasty mushroom, growing in the mulched path |
 |
| A small puffball mushroom dissected to show solid interior filled with spores |
 |
| Common Eastern Bumble Bee on a Rattlesnake Master flower head |
 |
| Same bee species on a Short-toothed Mountain-mint flower head |
 |
| Western Honey Bee on the Mountain-mint |
 |
| Katydid Wasp on Mountain-mint |
Trees, Forests, and
Land Use
(Quotes from Roger are in quotation marks; some notes added by Linda.)
“To
see the forest, you have to look at the trees. There is a story to be learned from
this forest. By looking at the trees, we are going to see the forest in an
entirely new perspective. This is a ‘secondary
growth forest,’ meaning this forest is in recovery. If we are in a hospital and
they put us in recovery, we are there to get our strength back, to let our
scars heal a little. So, when I’m looking at trees, I’m looking at how the
forest is recovering from human activities of farming and logging. The
three main objectives of the Ramble today are:
I want to introduce some trees that are over
100 years old.
I want to look at farm terraces that were built
about 1935.
I want to show you evidence that this whole forest was
heavily logged about 60 years ago.”
 |
| Our first stop of the morning was this Northern Red Oak, approximately 145 years old, growing near the beginning of the paved Shade Garden path. |
“I am going on about
how old these trees are so that we can have a conversation about the history of
this forest. This Northern Red Oak tree is 145 years old. When I say that,
there is a big asterisk beside that number. Of course, a tree may be older or
younger because of variations in growing conditions and the amount of
competition from trees around it. So,
when I say this tree is 145 years old, picture a bell curve with 145 in the mid-peak
of the bell curve. And then assume a 10 percent variation on either side of
that peak, more or less. Even if we were to go with a 20 percent variation for
this tree, this oak tree would still be at least 116 years old.”
 |
| “Here we have a Scarlet Oak which is 143 years old, approximately the same age as the Northern Red Oak. These two oak trees have been growing here since about the year 1880.” |
“This American Beech, though approximately
the same size or perhaps even smaller than the two oaks, is older than the oaks,
at slightly over 200 years old, and has been growing here since the year 1818. Beech
trees are the slowest growing trees in the forest. In more northern latitudes
around the Great Lakes where the growing season is shorter, a Beech tree this size
would be estimated at 288 years old.“
“These Beech trees, if they are indeed 200 years old, represent the very
beginning of the recovery of this landscape in the early 1800s to become the
forest that exists today. By 1820, this hillside would have been a gully-washed
landscape after cotton farming and would have been abandoned to forest
succession. That is when these Beech trees and other hardwoods began growing.”
 |
|
“These three trees – Northern Red Oak, Scarlet |
“I grew up in the South
Georgia piney woods and never saw a Beech tree. But learning about the Beech
tree has given me insights into the dynamics that go on in this forest. Each
species of tree has evolved its own strategy and found its own ecological niche
in the forest. On the one hand, the Beech tree’s strategy is to be the slowest
growing tree in the forest. Compare that to the Loblolly Pine whose strategy is
to have its seed blown by the wind into a barren open field – where there is no
competition and lots of sunshine – and then grow very fast to get ahead of the
hardwoods.”
“What does the presence
of the 100-year-old or possibly 200-year-old trees here on this hillside tell
us? Settlers came into this landscape in 1785 and cleared the forest to plant cotton
and other crops. Standing here 200 years ago, we would have been able to see
from hilltop to hilltop – because there were no trees in the way. On every
hilltop and slope, we would see fields of cotton. The farmer with his mule and
plow would have plowed straight downhill all the way to the river to plant his
cotton. Within one or two decades, this hillside would have become unfit for
cultivation and, by 1820 would have been abandoned to the ecological process of forest
succession.”
This diagram from Duke University illustrates the process that the Bot Garden landscape underwent over the last 200 years.
1-2 years after agricultural abandonment – weedy grasses and asters dominate
3-18 years – grasses, especially Broomsedge, persist and Loblolly Pine comes in
19-30 years – young pine forest
30-70 years – mature pine forest with understory of young hardwoods
70-100 years – pine to hardwood transition
100+ years – Oak-Hickory forest.
This process varies depending on the type of disturbance, the availability of seed sources, and the topography of the site.
“While the Loblolly pine
has to have lots of sunshine and needs to grow fast, the Beech is very shade
tolerant and grows very slowly – it does
not have a fast gear for growing. It will abide for decade after decade in the shady
understory – waiting for a big oak or pine to fall over and create a gap in the
canopy, allowing sunlight to reach its leaves. Its strategy is to wait it out
and eventually take its place in the canopy.” While it is waiting, its branches
grow horizontally to allow the leaves to capture as much of the sunlight falling
through the canopy as possible.
“This
Beech tree is literally standing there holding its breath. The Beech has a very
low respiration rate and its stomata (pores on the lower leaf surface that
control respiration) are more responsive to light than other trees such as Red
Maple, Tulip Tree, or Red Oak. The stomata of the Beech open more quickly when
light suddenly increases and rapidly close when light intensity diminishes.”
 |
| Loblolly Pines typically live 80-120 years, dying of old age or insect disease. As hardwoods begin to dominate, pines die out since their seedlings and sapling cannot thrive in the shade. |
 |
| These two wood pucks dramatically show the difference in growth rate for Beech versus Loblolly Pine. The smaller of the disks, taken from a large limb of the +200-year old Beech tree, represents over 15 years of growth, while the larger Loblolly Pine disk represents five or so years of growth. |
“Growth Rings and Growth Rates: The most accurate way to know the age of a tree is to cut it down and count the number of growth rings on the stump. Each growth ring represents one year of age [NB: each growth ring consists of two differently colored bands: a light colored band of spring/early summer growth and an outer, darker colored band of late summer/fall growth]. Each growth ring adds to the diameter of the tree. If a tree grows one inch in diameter, the circumference of its trunk will increase by 3.14 inches, since Circumference = Diameter x Pi. We can estimate the number of growth rings (age in years) by dividing a tree’s circumference by its circumference growth number (the amount its circumference increases on average in a year).” [Circumference growth numbers can be found on various forestry websites.]
 |
| This Sycamore was cut down this spring, perhaps due to storm damage, leaving a flat stump. The tree responded by sending up massive, healthy shoots, a regeneration process known as coppicing. |
 |
| “Coppiced trees are evidence that a forest has been logged. These trees regenerate from the stumps of hardwood trees after a logging episode. There are often conjoined trunks – two trunks fused together, having grown from the same stump. Coppiced trees such as this example are found throughout the Botanical Garden and are evidence that this landscape was heavily logged about 60 years ago.” |
Other evidence that this land was logged in the early
1960s are “before and after” aerial photographs from 1960 and 1967
which show the loss of forest canopy at that time.
 |
| The trunks of coppiced trees often grow together, their bases fusing into a single trunk. |
 |
| A Tulip Tree Beauty moth was spotted high up on the double-trunked Tulip Tree. With a wingspan of up to 2 inches, it is one of the larger geometer moths. It is found throughout the eastern US, wherever its caterpillar host, the Tulip Tree, grows. |
Terracing the slopes
In response to the frightening dust
storms that swept the American west in the early 1930s, and in hopes of restoring ruined
farmland across the south, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt
signed the Soil Conservation Act in 1935. One of the methods for soil
conservation that was promoted across the south was terracing, which converts slopes into wide
steps that can then be planted. Terracing prevents erosion by slowing down runoff
and allowing rain to soak into the soil; terracing has been employed by farmers since
antiquity, in both the old and new world.
 |
| 1935 Red and Black article about terrace training at UGA |
“This
newspaper article from 1935 tells of a terracing course in Athens to train 25 ‘terracing
supervisors’ who would oversee the terracing of farm land in Clarke, Madison,
and Jackson counties. This was the first terracing project in the state of
Georgia. The project would ultimately install over 104,000 acres of terracing on
farm land to control soil erosion in these three counties.” Terraced land leaves a tell-tale striped
appearance visible on aerial photographs; the terraced land at the top of this
photo is now traversed by the Blue Trail, west of the right-of-way, and
supports a mixed forest of loblolly pine and hardwoods.
 |
| Ramblers standing on an old terrace along the Blue Trail |
 |
| Another example of terraced land in Clarke County is the slope north of the granite outcrop at Rock and Shoals Natural Area. The parallel lines are clearly visible in this Google Earth image. |
 |
| The scar of an old farming road runs up the slope between Roger and Kathy. Such roads often turned into gullies. |
 |
| Roger and Kathy measuring an old Loblolly Pine near the Blue Trail for an age estimate. |
On our way back to the Visitor Center, we saw some very interesting fungi on the Blue Trail.
 |
| Green Cheese Polypore is usually found at the base of old oak trees |
 |
| Train-wrecker mushrooms can be identified by their sawtooth-edged gills and the scales on their caps and stems. They grow on dead conifers. |
 |
| Old Man of the Woods Sliced open, the flesh of this mushroom turns pinkish red then black over the course of an hour |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
Blewit mushroom Lepista nuda
Pill woodlouse Armadillidium sp.
Common Eastern Bumble Bee Bombus impatiens
Katydid Wasp Sphex nudus
Western Honey Bee Apis mellifera
Puffball mushroom Lycoperdon sp.
Northern Red Oak Quercus rubra
Scarlet Oak Quercus coccinea
Beech Fagus grandifolia
Loblolly Pine Pinus taeda
Sycamore Platanus occidentalis
Red Maple Acer rubrum
Tulip Tree Liriodendron tulipifera
Tulip-Tree Beauty moth Epimecis hortaria
Green Cheese Polypore Niveoporofomes spraguei
Trainwrecker mushroom Neolentinus lepideus
Old Man of the Woods Strombilomyces floccosus