The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. This article, from 2009, is a look at some of the oldest trees in Kentucky. This article first appeared in Winter 2009, Vol. 24, No. 2. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.
Floracliff’s Old Trees: Acorns of Restoration for the Inner Bluegrass Region
By Neil Pederson, Eastern Kentucky University
living tree at 398 years. Photo by Beverly James.
Old trees are windows into historical events. The science of tree-ring analysis takes advantage of a characteristic common to all trees: no matter how bad things get – an approaching fire, tornado, drought, etc. – trees must stay in place and absorb these abuses. Though each tree is an individual, environmental events like these impact all trees in a similar fashion: events that limit a tree’s ability to gain energy reduce the annual ring width. Scientists interpret patterns of ring widths within tree populations to reconstruct environmental history. To date, tree-ring scientists have successfully reconstructed drought history, Northern Hemisphere temperature, fire histories, insect outbreaks, etc. Tree-ring studies have also enriched human history. Scientists have dated logs from ancient structures that, in turn, triggered revisions of human history. Similarly, tree-ring evidence indicates that a severe drought likely contributed to the failure of The Lost Colony in Roanoke, NC and to the outbreak of a highly-contagious disease and subsequent crashes of the human population in ancient Mexico City. Just a few old trees in a small landscape can shed light into long-forgotten or unobserved events.
In late-summer ‘08, Beverly James, manager of Floracliff Nature Sanctuary, contacted me about sampling some trees in Floracliff to gain insight into the preserve’s ecological history. Having been in Floracliff previously, I was skeptical of coring its trees. It is so close to a major corridor (even pre-Daniel Boone), has a series of fields within the sanctuary, is dominated by a second-growth forest being overrun by bush honeysuckle and lies in the vicinity of the oldest European settlements in Kentucky. How and why could old trees survive these conditions? I feared that the coring of any trees here would reveal little beyond the fact that Floracliff was a young forest heavily cut within the last 100 years.
Later that fall, with permission from the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission and a great crew, including Dr. Ryan McEwan of University of Dayton, Ciara Lockstadt (a volunteer assistant at Floracliff), and Chris Boyer (undergrad at Eastern Kentucky University), the six of us cored 20 living chinkapin oaks. The first tree we cored came in at 372 years, the oldest documented tree in Kentucky—a record, it turns out, that did not last more than 30 minutes. Our second tree came in at 398 years and is now the oldest-documented tree in Kentucky. Named “Woodie C. Guthtree”, he now has his own “Facebook” page.
I teach a course on the ecology of old-growth forests. A reoccurring theme of the course is, “What is an old-growth forest?” As our society moves farther and farther away from the 1600s and fully appreciates the value of biological conservation, this question becomes pertinent. If the definition of an old-growth forest is simply a forest untouched by people of European descent, then there are no old-growth forests and little incentive to protect once, twice or thrice disturbed forests. However, if we define old-growth forests using the philosophy of Michael Pollan, who states that old-growth forests (or anything natural) will only persist because of human will, then it makes sense to allow the influence of humans into the old-growth forest definition. Making this allowance then allows for future creation and restoration of old-growth forests, a concept that the former definition makes impossible.
To be clear, these old trees are cull trees in a second-growth forest – these trees were left behind by loggers because they were seen as “inferior”. They did not grow to be prime, sawboard-producing trees. Their value, in my mind, is great. Not only have they been witnessing changes in the environment since well before Daniel Boone stepped foot into Kentucky, they are an important link to the past in an area that has more legend right now than facts. Floracliff and its Original Individuals can be a core for the recovery of the Inner Bluegrass landscape. See, while these trees were not considered “superior” when the Floracliff was cut, they contain genetic structure that is directly tied to pre-European forests. There was likely a loss of genetic diversity with logging. Yet, the architecture of the Original Individuals, which is what allowed them to live through the pre-sanctuary era, was likely shaped by what they struggled against to survive – direct competition, rather than weak genes. Plants seem to carry multiple copies of their genes. And, if the new discipline/area of study epigentics is any indication, genes are dynamic; a tree’s DNA system might be more dynamic than previously thought. Hope might genetically spring anew from these old chinkapin oaks.
As this chapter of environmental investigation closes, I look forward to the future of Floracliff and discoveries of the environmental history of the Inner Bluegrass Region. Floracliff is an emerald of the Inner Bluegrass; it can seed restoration of future old-growth forests while providing hope for the discovery of more forests with similar connections to ancient times. Floracliff will also be the lead forest in the reconstruction of regional environmental and human history. Its trees can help us answer questions such as, “What was the climate like during the settlement of Fort Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and Danville?” and “Were there any large-scale disturbances in the forests of the Inner Bluegrass region during the last 300 years?” The rare old trees of Floracliff will reveal important slivers of historical Fayette County ecology – slivers which will allow us to ponder and construct plans for a more sensible and hopeful future environment.