The Pisgah Forest Elementary School Silver Maple.

[James Parton]

ENTS,

October 2 2010.

While having a nice little 1st birthday party for my little cute step-granddaughter Kloie Peterson at the Transylvania County Recreation Center on Ecusta Rd near the Pisgah Forest Elementary School in Brevard NC, Sarah, my daughter and I took a walk around the ball fields and up around the school building. Upon rounding the building I spied a big tree out front near another building. I quickly thought " looks like a big oak or maple around 14-15 feet in girth. We walked up to the tree and it dwarfed my 90 pound 4'10" daughter standing in front of it. I re-thought, it might go 18 feet in girth. Fortunately before leaving home I put my ENTS measuring gear in the backseat of the car just in case I happened to see a big tree. I was now glad I did.

Upon leaving Kloie's little party, Sarah and I stopped to measure the great tree. It is a Silver Maple. Sarah was of great help here since she helped me measure both the girth and especially the spread of the tree. The tree appears it may well be a single trunked tree but I would not rule out it being a fused specimen. It is easily larger than my mother's great Silver Maple, which is single trunked and over 15 feet in girth, and comparable with a huge multi-stemmed Silver Maple I measured in Patton Park a couple of years ago.

http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldt ... les_nc.htm

The measurements of this tree are: Height 70.7 feet.  Girth, 20ft  6 1/4 in. Diameter, 6.5 feet. Average Spread, 89.2 feet.

There is a possibility of a slightly higher twig since the tree has a broad crown but the height is probably pretty darn close.

I afterwards looked up Silver Maples on ENTS and other sites and found Ed Frank and company had measured some multi-trunked specimens just a little bigger than this and American Forests has a 28 foot girthed tree, if I remember right, as the champ. They had no picture of it and I suspect it being a multi-stemmed tree. But this one is the nicest I have found. It was a good birthday present since my birthday is today, only one day after Kloie's! I am 46.

Here is some photos.

[Jimmy McDonald]

Excellent Silver maple!  I know of a few large ones myself but I haven't measured one that large. I think its awesome that you brought your measuring stuff, you never know when you'll need to measure a tree.

[Will Blozan]

James,

Nice tree for sure! It is definitely multi-stemmed and if single-stemmed girth would be measured at the narrowest point possible- not where limb swell influences girth. This point may be well below 4.5 feet. The tree likely dates to the school establishment.

Black Mountain, NC has two silver maples over 22' at narrowest point below forks. Both are mutlistemmed and as such are scoffed at (by me). Impressive fusions of wood but not a single tree.

Will

[James Parton]

Will,  What I mean by " single stem " is that the tree has a single trunk. If you look at the biggest tree measured on the Patton Park post it is very obviously multiple trunked. But I suspect that the PFE Silver Maple is fused, that is that it once was multiple. I know they are not as significant as a tree that has always been single trunked. I will have to get back out there and measure the tree at it's narrowest point. By habit I usually measure a tree at 4.5 feet, unless a burl or something is in the way. It seems that most really large Silver Maples are multiple trunked or fused trunked trees.  I would like to see those Black Mountain trees!   James.

[gnmcmartin]

Silver maples are much maligned and not well understood.  One of the most wonderful trees I knew when I was growing up in NJ was a magnificent silver maple that grew right next to the old stone church our family attended.  I am now sure now just how large it was, but it was certainly over 5 feet in diameter, and it divided at 8 or 10 feet into a good number of ascending limbs--maybe as many as 6 or 7.

  These trees are not as weak and subject to breakage as many of the ‘tree experts” out there will tell you.

  Anyway, Silver maples grown in the open typically divide into multiple trunks, or as I prefer to think of them, ascending limbs, very low down.  Often an ascending limb or second trunk starts out 3 feet from the ground.  The trees sometimes rise ten feet or more before dividing, and some forest grown trees can maintain a single trunk somewhat higher if pressed on all sides. Bt this is not the usual growth habit of open grown trees.

  My guess is that this and others like it, are single trees, but without actually digging the thing up, or taking a core right at the root collar, there is no way to know for sure. I have watched a number of these trees grow from seedlings/saplings. Some of them when they got larger could look like two or three fused trees to casual observers

  Anyway, James, thanks for showing us this tree.  Love it!

  --Gaines

[James Parton]

Gaines,  The tree looks single trunked but the tree does show some evidence of fusion, that is pith lines where past stems have grown together. There can be a blurry line on what is a single trunked tree and a multiple trunked one. James

[edfrank]

James,

As Gaines suggests, the only real question is whether or not a particular tree is low branching, say at around 3 feet, with one pith at ground level, or whether there are multiple piths at ground level.  Once the tree get so fat it is hard to tell.  We need to figure out a solution to making this determination.  There are some nice single trunk silvers on Baker and Thompson Islands in the Allegheny River Islands Wilderness.

Ed

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[jamesrobertsmith]

Wow, James!!! That's one heck of a tree! Thanks for posting the find!

[James Parton]

Ed,

I have some of your posts on the Allegheny River Islands. You guys found some " killer " Silver Maples and huge Hawthorns there.

I have always had issues with the multiple-single classification when a tree fuses multiple trunks into what appears to be in most ways a single trunk. After all, the roots and indeed the entire tree behaves as one individual. Some trees that are fused are obviously double/multiple, like two or three trunks growing out of a bulbous swollen fused base. But others in most ways look like normal single trunked trees, except for evidence of pith lines. But even these can disappear given enough time. Scientifically I know and realize that a true nonfused single trunk is more significant and should be recognized as such. But still. It seems that sometimes a big tree is just that. A big tree!

James

[edfrank]

James,

There are different ideas on multiple trunks.  Will, for example, by his own words writes:  "Both are mutlistemmed and as such are scoffed at (by me). Impressive fusions of wood but not a single tree."  Others non-critically look at any large trunk a a single tree whether or not they are a fused multiple trunk tree or not.  I am sort of in between.  I believe there is an important distinction and valid to be made between those trees that have formed a single trunk and those that have a large trunk as a result of two or more trunks fusing together.  These fused trunks are, in my mind, a perfectly valid growth form that is fairly common in some species and occur commonly through natural processes.  As such, they deserve to be measured and counted among the trees that represent the species, if we are to have a fair overview of the tree species population as a whole.  This is the basic premise of the multitrunk classification system I proposed and have on the ENTS website. http://www.nativetreesociety.org/multi/index_multi.htm  Unlike some on the list I do not believe that multitrunk trees are simply a fusion of two or more essentially separate individuals.  The idea that they can be counted as essentially individuals is not without merit.  It is a useful concept that can be applied to the development of the structure of a forested setting.  It can be explained largely through the basic stem exclusion process.  The same competition between stems idea can even be applied to looking at competition between limbs on a single tree.  Lee Frelich and I have discussed this before on the list.  

I do not think these multitrunk trees should be considered the same as a single trunk tree, but I do not think they should be considered as a simple collection of individual trees that happen to be touching.  They are something in between these two extremes.  As you pointed out they may be sharing the same root mass.  Articles like this one, mentioned when we were still on Google, talks about chemical communication and recognition between the roots of a tree with other adjacent trees.  http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Root+words:+scientists+strengthen+the+case+for+subterranean+signals...-a010596772  The roots indicate that trees in a grouping may be coordinating their growth through this for of communication.  They are not purely competing nor can they said to be cooperating as that implies a conscious act, but they are making accommodations for other trees in the area.  This surely applies to trees which are sharing or have intermingling root systems.  All out competition or to phrase it another way all out war between different trees and different trunks in a multitrunk tree might not be the most advantageous to the trees involved.  Perhaps one tree would manage to overwhelm another, but at the cost of a Pyhrric victory, is that the trees best option?  Evolution tends to favor things that give at least a modest advantage, so if making accommodations for other trees is better for them, that is what they do.  I think this is the case for many of the species that commonly have multitrunk masses.  I am not sure how to quantify this idea to see if I am correct or not, but measuring and documenting these multitrunk trees, single trunk trees, and low branching trees is surely a place to start.

Ed Frank

PS:  Scott Wade sent me this photo:

               

                       

                                       

               

He wrote partly in jest, "Ed, evidence of multiple stemmed trees that are one tree attached!!!! I sent this to will and Dale too.  I found three of these acorns this past spring.  Scott"  

I replied:  "Scott, Wow!!  You have two different trees growing from the same acorn!!   Edward Frank"  It is a matter of perspective.

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