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Come back to this page each day to read another entry from Frederick R. Gehlbach's almanac of suburban natural and unnatural history, "Messages from the Wild," which chronicles the world of a forested ravine in central Texas.
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Giant scalybark oaks are a unique feature of my home. I don't know another place with so many originals. I am in awe of these ancients that tell me of long-gone community members, including red wolves and first Americans. Large ones average eighteen inches in diameter, but a goliath is thirty-five inches through and seventy feet tall -- perhaps a state or national champion. Based on the ages of those cut down during house construction, I figure it takes a scalybark close to 150 years to grow to average size. Inside the ravine, especially on creek terraces protected from storms, fire, and cutting, scalybarks are easily identified, but on exposed scarps where naturally stressed and burned or unnaturally cut and regrown, they are squatty and multiple-trunked -- quite different-looking survivors. |
Frederick R. Gehlbach is Professor Emeritus of Biology and Environmental Studies at Baylor University. His ecological studies have taken him from New Zealand to Slovakia and, in the Americas, from Alaska and Newfoundland to Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. His research interests include the life-history strategies of small owls, small burrowing snakes and urban wildlife ecology.
From MESSAGES FROM THE WILD: AN ALMANAC OF SUBURBAN NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY by Frederick R. Gehlbach, Copyright © 2002. Courtesy of the University of Texas Press.
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