The Successional Status of Table Mountain Pine

Figure 1. Daniel Lewis (left) and Henri Grissino-Mayer inspect a living fire-scarred tree to determine the best way to sample it with the large crosscut saw. We were not allowed to use a chain saw for this project, which greatly limited the quality of information we obtained for fire history.

Figure 2. Daniel Lewis (right) and Henri Grissino-Mayer saw into a very large dead standing snag with a beautiful catface on the uphill side at the Bote Mountain site.

Figure 3. A beautiful standing dead Table Mountain pine snag with a classic fire-scarred catface on the uphill side.

Figure 4. Kevin Anchukaitis (left) and Michael Armbrister ponder when we'll begin to find some nice fire history samples in the Smokies. (In reality, they're leaning against a small snag with a very nice set of scars on the uphill side. The national park harbors numerous fire-scarred Table Mountain pines in many areas.)

Figure 5. In case no one believes that the national park has some very nice fire-scarred Table Mountain pines, take a look at this very nice sample. We could have sampled well over 100 trees in the five sites we inspected, but because we were restricted to using hand saws and a cross cut saw, we could only collect about 20 samples.

Figure 6. The joys of using a hand saw! Blast! Daniel Lewis enjoys some exercise! In one day of sampling, we could only collect about 8 samples because we had to use a hand saw. It was frustrating! Still, we obtained enough samples to provide a preliminary history of fire in certain parts of the national park.