Zehao's plot.
This post is a bit out of chronological order, but this site is pretty important. Unfortunately, because of the distance and terrain required to get up to the site, we never got back up to collect data. Thankfully, Zehao has already logged much of the diameter and height information on all the trees on that plot.
While getting to know the site on the first day at Dalaoling, the whole scientific team made the trek up a very steep slope to observe chestnut trees up at Dr. Shen Zehao's plot. We climbed a good 1000 feet up to get to his site which was chosen because it was "flat". And this is true. It's probably the flattest piece of ground - perhaps in all of China - that hasn't been cultivated.
In any case, it was a fun and humid walk. And what we saw up on that bench was well worth it!! As we were still pretty new to the site and the three species, we still had a bit of trouble keying out the species we saw. Henryi was typically easy to key out - the leaf shape is very distinctive. But mollissima and seguinii are very much alike.
Once up there, we saw some very large trees. And then we started seeing trees that keyed out exactly as Castanea seguinii - according to two keys we had with us - the only difference being that they were over 80 feet tall! In the literature - and with everything I'd heard - the C. seguinii is often referred to as the "dwarf chestnut" and that it rarely reaches heights over 10, 12, or 15 meters (depending on the reference one uses).
But there were some very large chestnuts up there. In fact, the dominant tree in the canopy was either C. henryi or C. seguinii. Based on our observations, we did not see any C. mollissima at Zehao's plot. But with sizes > 20" dbh and most trees over 80feet in height, wonderful, straight form and no evidence of blight infection - not even suspicious lesions like we'd seen below on the road - this was a wonderful place to observe chesntut. And is also a site for us to note for continued observation and collection.
If you're interested in reading more about Zehao's plot, you can go to http://scholar.google.com. Then search for "Shen" and "Dalaoling" and you should find several articles about the site. The disadvantage is that they are mostly in Chinese. The advantage is that you can at least read the abstract in English.
Kim stands next to a large C. seguinii.
While getting to know the site on the first day at Dalaoling, the whole scientific team made the trek up a very steep slope to observe chestnut trees up at Dr. Shen Zehao's plot. We climbed a good 1000 feet up to get to his site which was chosen because it was "flat". And this is true. It's probably the flattest piece of ground - perhaps in all of China - that hasn't been cultivated.
In any case, it was a fun and humid walk. And what we saw up on that bench was well worth it!! As we were still pretty new to the site and the three species, we still had a bit of trouble keying out the species we saw. Henryi was typically easy to key out - the leaf shape is very distinctive. But mollissima and seguinii are very much alike.
Once up there, we saw some very large trees. And then we started seeing trees that keyed out exactly as Castanea seguinii - according to two keys we had with us - the only difference being that they were over 80 feet tall! In the literature - and with everything I'd heard - the C. seguinii is often referred to as the "dwarf chestnut" and that it rarely reaches heights over 10, 12, or 15 meters (depending on the reference one uses).
But there were some very large chestnuts up there. In fact, the dominant tree in the canopy was either C. henryi or C. seguinii. Based on our observations, we did not see any C. mollissima at Zehao's plot. But with sizes > 20" dbh and most trees over 80feet in height, wonderful, straight form and no evidence of blight infection - not even suspicious lesions like we'd seen below on the road - this was a wonderful place to observe chesntut. And is also a site for us to note for continued observation and collection.
If you're interested in reading more about Zehao's plot, you can go to http://scholar.google.com. Then search for "Shen" and "Dalaoling" and you should find several articles about the site. The disadvantage is that they are mostly in Chinese. The advantage is that you can at least read the abstract in English.
We basically followed a stream up to Dr. Shen's plot. There were some beautiful water features along the way.
The walk up was very humid. Steamy!
Dr. He Wei stands beside a beautiful chestnut. I don't remember if this was a henryi or segunii. Suffice to say most looked this good and large.
The walk up was very humid. Steamy!
Dr. He Wei stands beside a beautiful chestnut. I don't remember if this was a henryi or segunii. Suffice to say most looked this good and large.
Kim stands next to a large C. seguinii.
Zehao stands next to another C. seguinii individual.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Zehao's plot..
TrackBack URL for this entry: https://blogs.psu.edu/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/18820
Leave a comment