Thursday, January 18, 2024

 Union Parish's Scenic Streams  a Treasure Trove of Ancient Cypress


North Louisiana's bounty of old growth cypress was on full display last October as the LPCL returned to Union Parish after several year's absence.  Corney Bayou, one of Louisiana's designated scenic streams, was our first stop. 


                               Bayou Corney-- Union Parish-- east of Barnes Bridge Road access

Plentiful older growth cypress near Barnes Bridge Road access south of Spearsville. Here are the details on the tree pictured above: 

Circumference 14'6"

Boring: 4.18"  Rings counted: Approx. 91

Projected age: 520+ years

 A bit further upstream from this venerable old cypress is another ancient  cypress, pictured below 





Here are the details for this Corney Bayou beauty:

GPS: 32.8788582  -92.5898254  Access at Barnes Bridge Road (north side) south of  Spearville

Click here for the map 

Circumference: 14'10" above buttress

Preliminary Projected age: 400+ years (boring not yet taken due to low water level precluding access to trunk)

LPCL Plaque # 85

Thanks to Stephanie Hermann and LPCL Board member John Michael Kelley for taking the lead to register and place plaque #85 on this Corney Bayou landmark!


                                                                            ******

Eagle Lake,  D'Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge

A perfect October autumn day brought the LPLC and the Union Parish "Swamp Rabbits" paddling club into the D'Arbonne NWR, where trip leader Steven Birmingham knew of a particular cypress he wanted us to landmark. This tree, pictured below,  proved to be an exemplary specimen in its grandeur, girth, and age.



Details of Eagle Lake Tree

Click here for map

Circumference: 25'3" Diameter: 96"

First boring 7.8"  Rings counted:  Approximately 220

Second boring : 5" Rings counted: Approximately 175

Projected Age: 1100+ years.  This is a conservative estimate taking into account likely faster rate of growth (wider separation of rings) in hollow inner area of tree (young growth) excluded from boring sample-- see photo below.





                                                                                *******

"Big Foote Tree"-- Bayou de Loutre

 Our union Parish big cypress treasure hunt culminated on Bayou De L'outre  when local resident and part time guide Sherman Foote took us into the far reaches of Bayou se Loutre to a truely impressive cypress, which proved to be easily as old as it appears. 



                        GPS:  32.7062539  -92.1655726
                         click here for map   
                   
                        Circumference 42', Diameter 160", Radius 80"
                        First boring 3.25"  Rings counted: Approx.105
                        Second boring 3.5" Rings counted: Approx.104
                        Third boring: 3".     Rings counted: Approx 53

                        Projected age 1300+ years If the third boring ring count is an "outlier", than the                          projected age could be much older. Regardless, this is a conservative estimate.


Boring #2 from "Big Foote Tree"





Sherman Foote next to towering "Big Foote" cypress knee



                                      Massive girth reflected in 42 Foot circumference

Many thanks to Sherman Foote for enabling the LPCL to landmark this remarkable cypress. He'll be placing LPCL Plaque #87 on his namesake Big Foote tree once water level on Bayou de Loutre is high enough to have plaque placed high enough on trunk to deter its submergence during any future flood stage.

********

Upper Ouchita National Wildlife Refuge

We concluded our Union Parish visit with a trip to the Upper Ouchita National Wildlife Refuge, where yet another champion size and age cypress embodies North Louisiana's natural heritage-- likely alive at least two hundred years before the Louisiana Purchase




GPS 32.9069210 -92.1039900

Click here for map

Circumference: 25'3"
Projected Age: Conservatively 400+ years

Stephanie Hermann points out location of LPCL registered cypress on the Ouachita River in the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge. This tree is easily visible from the Refuge access road.
 



Stephanie Hermann, LPCL Board member Grace Hill in front of Ouchita cypress with LPCL plaque #88




One of several informational kiosks created by Stephanie Hermann highlighting the natural and cultural heritage of Union Parish--this one is in the Upper Ouchita NWR near the site of the LPCL landmarked cypress


********

    The Secrets of the Cypress


Backwater in the swamps, 

Lies a gothic labyrinth land.

On tannin stained bayous;

The secret keeper quietly stands.


Down deep in the murky mud 

Are mysteries as dark as the stream;

Sunk below the jagged stumps. 

Buried stories never to be seen;


Time simmers in the stillness

Silenced by the ghostly trees; 

One gentle giant is among them

The guardian of treasured memories  


A majestic turret of columns 

This towering slate legend adorned. 

With menacing ominous gargoyles

And ghoulish trolls to forewarn.  


Nestled here is the curator of secrets

A library in a cathedral of tales.

Stories of triumphs and disaster 

Joyful laughter and sorrowful wails. 


Of war

Of famine,

Of peace,

Of feast.


Of life,

Of death;

Of love

Of curiosity.


Kept are the symbols of native tribes,

The journals of exploring conquistadors. 

Letters from homestead settler outposts

Diaries of weary battled soldiers from war. 


Fishing fables that floated downstream ;

Creature sagas who sheltered beneath. 

All nestled in the great granddaddy hollow 

of this 500 year old cypress tree. 


Those who venture this way 

With secrets alive and well…

Leave your heavy burdens here;

The tree will never tell.  


Stephanie Antley Herrmann, 2023


Thursday, August 17, 2023


Welcome to our Northern Louisiana Supporters

Celebrating Twenty years of finding, registering and promoting the stewardship of Louisiana cypress alive at the time of the Louisiana Purchase-- "Alive in 1803"

The Louisiana Purchase Cypress Legacy is proud to be an underwriter in August and September of Kelby Ouchley's "Bayou Diversity" editions, as heard Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays on KEDM radio, Monroe. Amidst the natural beauty of the KEDM listening area  are many remaining old growth cypress scattered throughout the region.
Kelby's perspective on these venerable  denizens of the lakes and bayous of northern Louisiana is quoted below, complimented by photos illustrating his impressions of these century old cypress:

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop\2012_03_01\cypress 3_NEW.jpg


“Most cypress stands today are second growth, but there still remain

a few giants among us.  They exist because they are hollow and thus

not merchantable or because they grow in an area so remote as to make

harvest unfeasible.  They tower one hundred feet above the earth and

laid down their first annular rings during the classical period of the Mayan culture…….



Bear Bayou,  St. Mary Parish


…..They germinated and grew into seedling as Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman emperor.

They were sound and mature when the sun gleamed from the swords of Hernando DeSoto’s men

as they marched across northeast Louisiana in a fruitless search for gold……



Bayou Chemin- A-Haute, Morehouse Parish


…..It is possible that their limbs were once laden with the weight of a thousand

passenger pigeons and that their bark was probed by ivory-billed woodpeckers. 

Cougars and bears may have sought refuge in their hollows.  It is likely that

a few of these will still be greeting each spring with a fresh feathering of needle-like

leaves in centuries to come”     Kelby Ouchley


                                                         *****************         

                  Exploring Old Growth Cypress in Northern Louisiana


The KEDM listening area includes lakes, bayous and wetlands where you can discover some

of the finest old growth cypress in Louisiana. Getting out and exploring these centuries old

cypress is will help spread the word that old growth cypress is worth protecting.

Perhaps none is better known in this region than the the "Castle Tree" located in Chemin-a-Haute

State Park. The Bayou Chapter of the Ozark Society has led paddling trips to view this amazing

tree, as well as trips to view other LPCL landmarked trees



        Castle Tree, Bayou Chemin-a-Haute, Morehouse Parish, courtesy of Ozark Society, Bayou Chapter

The Bastrop Daily Enterprise reported on the LPCL's landmarking of this tree in 2012:

Location of  "Castle Tree"  in Chemin a Haut State Park, Morehouse Parish




Louisiana Purchase Cypress Legacy coordinator Harvey Stern
Right took core samples from the largest cypress tree in Chem-A-Haut
Creek with assistance from Chem-A-Haut State Park Manager
Russ Brantlay


Largest cypress in parish gets recognition

By Wes Helbling
Posted Mar 06, 2012 @ 11:30 AM
Last update Mar 13, 2012 @ 01:37 PM


BASTROP —

Harvey Stern came to Morehouse Parish over the weekend to see a castle that predates the state of Louisiana, possibly by centuries.

Stern, who is the coordinator of the Louisiana Purchase Cypress Legacy program, said he became interested in visiting Chemin-A-Haut Creek after finding a description of its “large, old-growth cypress” trees in a topographical map of Louisiana. “The Castle” he came to document is an approximately 20-foot-diameter cypress tree in the middle of the creek, with a hollow cavern large enough to paddle canoes and kayaks inside.

“It’s such a unique tree,” said Stern. “It’s exactly the kind we’re looking for – the kind that shows there’s still some old growth worth preserving in Louisiana.”

On Saturday, Chemin-A-Haut State Park Manager Russ Brantley and paddler Joe Rolfe of Oak Ridge took Stern to the Castle to measure its circumference and took core samples. He said it may take a few days for the samples to dry out so that a “guesstimate” can be made as to the tree’s age by comparing the number of rings to the Castle’s radius.

A tributary of Bayou Bartholomew, Chemin-A-Haut Creek was overlooked by the 19th timber industry and today boasts some of the oldest and largest cypress trees in Louisiana. Some of the most impressive trees have gained nicknames from local paddlers, such as twin-trunked “Jester” and the storm-felled “Blowdown.”

Stern said high water in the creek, and the tree’s hollow buttress, posed special challenges for Saturday’s attempt to determine the Castle’s age. However, its enormous girth was enough for Stern to present Brantley with a plaque that will be affixed to the Castle, designating it as the sixth tree in Louisiana that was “Alive in 1812,” the year of Louisiana’s statehood.

“Based on other trees I’ve cored, I have a pretty good idea it’s several centuries old,” he said. “It’s old enough to be a [Louisiana] Bicentennial tree. The question is, how many centuries do you add to that?”

Other cypress trees that will be included in the Bicentennial project are located in Tickfaw State Park, Jean Lafitte National Park and sites in Plaquemines and Webster parishes.

A number of ancient cypress trees have already been designated throughout the state by the Legacy program, which marks trees that were living at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Recently, a tree examined in Washington Parish was found to be roughly 800 years old. The largest bald cypress in the U.S., with a 53-foot circumference, is located in Louisiana’s Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Stern said he has previously designated a cypress tree in Morehouse Parish, closer to the Arkansas line, that is believed to be “well over 500 years old.” This tree is located in what “as beautiful a stand of old-growth cypress as I’ve seen anywhere in the state. You can’t get a bass boat through that part of the bayou because the trees are so thick.”

Stern said formal recognition of the Castle may also enhance state and local projects to establish and promote paddle trails in both Bartholomew and Chemin-A-Haut. Based on a visit to Morehouse Parish last fall, river guide John Ruskey notes the cypress trees “monolithically reaching to the sky” in his paddle guide to Chemin-A-Haut Creek.

Ruskey writes, “Trees this big are at least 1,000 years old … They saw Hernando de Soto, La Salle, the rise of the French Empire and the sale of the Louisiana Purchase. They lived through the birth of the American West, the Civil and the Industrial Age. If not logged or submerged they will outlive us all ...”

When Stern has determined an estimated age for the Castle based on the core samples, its location and data will be catalogued on the LPCL Web site (www.lapurchasecypresslegacy.blogspot.com)

Plans are also in the works for a Web site dedicated to the “Alive in 1812” Bicentennial trees.


 












Excepted from the LPCL registry of the largest/oldest known cypress in each Louisiana Parish ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RVOgpa5-6QAftT54oOYcsfRNfduSIn_O9n7EnR9lKWU/edit)
is a summary of our findings regarding this amazing tree

Parish

GPS/ Map

Photo

Circumference

Core Length/ Rings Counted

Estimated Age

Notes


Morehouse Parish








32.91091N, -91.83083W

click here for map




Approx 25 ft

1st: 1.8”

Approx rings:102 2nd: 1.8”

Approx rings: 81

3rd: 1”

Rings:27

1200+ yrs

In Bayou Chemin a Haute, Chemin A Haute State Park (“Castle Tree”)




The Bayou Chapter of the Ozark Society ( https://www.ozarksociety.net/chapters/bayou/)has led paddling trips to view this amazing tree, as well as to several other Northern Louisiana locations  where old growth cypress is found, and where the LPCL has placed plaques on particularly remarkable trees over 220 years old, such as the "Zac Burson" tree
on Bayou Bodcau in Bossier Parish.

The "Zac Burson" Tree-- Plaque #26, Bodcau Bayou, Bossier Parish

While individual old growth cypress of impressive size and age make great destination points for paddling trips in Northern Louisiana, we wish to emphasize that many sections of the North Louisiana Bayous such as Bayou De L'outre, Chemin a Haute , Dorcheat, Bodcau, Batholomew contain groves of old growth cypress likely well over 200 years old, based on LPCL borings of similar sized trees in the area:
Bayou Chemin a Haute between Hwy 590 and the Arkansas State Line in Morehouse Parish

***********

Louisiana Delta Adventures

An excellent source of paddling adventures into old growth cypress locations in Northern and Central Louisiana can be found  athttps://www.louisianadeltaadventures.com/things-to-do/paddling/ , which has several on-line brochures of paddling trails into areas including Bayou Bartholomew, D'Arbonne Country, and the Tensas River-- to name a few. Among recommended excursions into what is called a "primordial [cypress] paradise" is the Corney Creek Trail described in the D'Arbonne  Country Water Trails Brochure.

                                                                        ************


Kelby Ouchley, in his long-running Bayou Diversity episodes, often illustrates the symbiotic connection between the critters in his anecdotes and the sloughs, bayous, and forested they inhabit.
Among the individuals who has contacted the La Purchase Cypress Legacy over the past twenty years is Ben Grizzle, turtle ecologist, who sent us the following photo of a likely LPCL candidate (220+ years old) in the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in Union Parish. 



        


Mr. Grizzle has kindly contributed an excellent summary of his research in Northern Louisiana regarding the symbiotic interplay of the alligator snapping turtle and other endemic turtles to the mature cypress ecosystems they have traditionally inhabited. We are happy to include his research findings below:


Chelonians of the Southern Wilds:

The Importance of Turtles to the Conservation of Cypress Ecosystems


Ben Grizzle



Cypress brake in Caldwell Parish--habitat of the Alligator snapping turtle


Turtles are among the most endangered groups of vertebrate animals on Earth.  The IUCN estimates that 60% of global turtle species are threatened, endangered, or have gone extinct in modern times.  The American South is home to an exceptionally rich assemblage of turtle species, one that is rivaled in its diversity only by the Ganges basin of southern Asia.  Some 45 species occur in this region, due in large part to the incredible diversity of its rivers and wetland habitats.  Historically, many of these species thrived in the vast swaths of old-growth Cypress and Tupelo forest that dominated the Southern lowlands.  The roles they play in these ecosystems are both complex and critically important.


Cypress grove in an impoundment in Union Parish. The permanent flooding of this formerly seasonal wetland will likely have a negative impact on recruitment of Cypress seedlings.


One of the most basic and essential roles turtles play in Cypress bottomlands is that of primary, secondary, and even tertiary consumers.  Perhaps the most famous chelonian inhabitant of these wetlands is the Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys temminckii and suwanniensis).  These prehistoric predators can grow to well over 100 pounds and live for more than a century.  They are well known as sit-and-wait predators of fish, mammals, and even other turtles, sitting in the mud and using the bright-colored lure on their tongue to attract their unwitting prey.  However, this role as an apex predator is only part of their contribution to the ecosystem.  Studies of stomach contents and fecal matter have revealed Alligator Snappers to be prolific scavengers of carrion, with many feeding on dead fish, deer, and feral hogs.  Even more noteworthy is the frequency with which they are found to have ingested vegetation.  In one study of Alligator Snappers from Arkansas and Louisiana, vegetative matter was found in the digestive tracts of 108 of the 109 turtles examined.  While some of the vegetation may have been ingested accidentally, the abundance of acorns and Tupelo fruit suggests that Alligator Snappers seek out both hard and soft mast as food.  In this way, Alligator Snappers may even act as seed dispersers.  Anecdotally, I have observed Alligator Snappers in the fall with oily black stains on their beaks and inside their mouths.  This discoloration could very well be the result of foraging on tannin-rich acorns.


Large male Alligator Snapper displaying tannin stains (Ouachita Parish)


It isn’t just the large turtles that play important roles either.  Anyone familiar with the swamps of the deep south knows that the base of the food chain is dominated by one group of invertebrates: crayfish.  In shallow, seasonally flooded Cypress forests, turtles are among the top consumers of these freshwater crustaceans.  Mud Turtles (Kinosternon spp.), Musk Turtles (Sternotherus odoratus), Sliders (Trachemys scripta), and Common Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina) are important consumers of crayfish and other invertebrates, providing a regulatory force on their populations.  The presence of a healthy population of these secondary consumers is also a major driver of nutrient cycling, which can be crucial in the nutrient-poor conditions of a Cypress swamp.  The presence of omnivorous turtles has also been experimentally demonstrated to alter environmental characteristics such as pH and sedimentation in positive ways.


Mississippi Mud Turtle (Union Parish)


The relationship between turtles and Cypress wetlands goes both ways.  Cypress forest is a critical habitat for several threatened turtle species, such as the aforementioned Alligator Snapping Turtle, Alabama Red-bellied Turtles (Pseudemys alabamensis), Chicken Turtles (Deirochelys reticularia), and Spotted Turtles (Clemmys guttata).  These species heavily utilize both permanently and ephemerally flooded Cypress forests in the southeast.


Unfortunately, much like the turtles that inhabit them, these forests have become endangered.  Because of their deep interconnectedness, the conservation of Cypress forests and freshwater turtles is inextricably linked.  The threats they face are virtually identical.  Overexploitation by humans, development, alterations in hydrology, and invasive species are the major threats facing both turtles and their habitat today.  Conservation of both is a complex issue, with dozens of confounding factors that must be considered in any strategy moving forward.  One dire concept that applies to both turtles and Cypress trees is that of extinction debt.  In species with slow growth rates and long generation times (i.e. Alligator Snapping Turtles and Bald Cypress trees), the persistence of many mature organisms on the landscape is not necessarily an indicator of a healthy population.  Because these species take several years to reach reproductive age and produce few viable offspring even under the best conditions, deficiencies in recruitment and reproduction can take decades to manifest in any obvious way, by which time a collapse in the population may be unavoidable.  For both species, alterations in hydrology and invasion by exotic species such as fire ants, feral hogs, and Chinese Tallow trees are the main culprits behind these losses in recruitment.


In all, turtles are some of the most important animal residents of the Southeastern Cypress forests.  Their contributions to the ecology of these habitats, as well as their reliance on them, have played out over millions of years.  Today, they both face the greatest threats in their respective histories, and to save one we must necessarily save the other.  There is hope, as extensive ecological restoration programs are currently being undertaken across the Southeast.  However, it is only with the support and understanding of the general public that these magnificent ecosystems and their unique inhabitants will be able to persist for generations to come.






Mississippi Map Turtle (Graptemys pseudogeographica kohni basking on the buttress of a Cypress in Ouachita Parish


References and Further Reading

Lovich JE, Ennen JR, Agha M, & Gibbons JW. 2018. “Where Have All the Turtles Gone, and Why Does it Matter?” BioScience 68:771-781.

Elsey RM. 2006. “Food Habits of Macrochelys temminckii (Alligator Snapping Turtle) from Arkansas and Louisiana.” Southeastern Naturalist 5:443-452

Ernst CH, Lovich JE. 2009. “Turtles of the United States and Canada.” Baltimore: JHU Press. 827pp.