Albright Grove: No Tree Lives Forever (Part 2 of 2)

As Phyllis and I walked through Albright Grove I wondered why this piece of virgin forest didn’t look established and mature, like a 300 year old cathedral.

After some rumination and a few conversations with a few folks who might know, I think I know at least part of the answer. Albright Grove has been slowly, invisibly “logged.”

Some of the logging has been the result of old age. Some trees species will live longer than others, but no tree can live forever. Throw pollution, lightning, wind, and drought into the mix and the result is an old forest with many dead, dying, and broken trees.

Other loggers were small and secretive. They snuck into our forest before we realized what was happening, and once we discovered their covert activity, it was too late. We were defenseless against their attack. This happened in the 1930s when the Chestnut blight (fungus) swept through the eastern US and wiped out virtually all of what had been one of the dominant trees in the East – the American Chestnut.

It was a biological and economic disaster for the animals and the people, both of whom depended on the chestnuts for their life and livelihood. Of course, the forests suffered, but as any biological community will do, it readjusted, filled in the gaps, and flourished in a different form. Where chestnut once dominated, we now see poplar, maple, oak, and hickory.

This tragedy happened about 75 years ago, which is a long time in human terms but not in forestry terms. The death of the chestnuts opened up the forest canopy. The sunlight shone down on the long-shaded forest floor, and the fight was on! Flowers, shrubs, and trees vied for position, creating a botanical chaos for a few years. Gradually, the trees grew up to take the place of the American Chestnuts, but the process is still unfolding. The deep, deep shade of a mature forest is still missing. The massive trunks of ancient trees are missing – except for the few, scattered giants still hanging on in Albright Grove and other portions of virgin forest in the Smokies.

What’s really going on here is the difference between a climax forest and virgin forest, two things that would often be the same thing but not always. Not in Albright Grove.

A virgin forest is one that has not been logged. It is untouched by man. This creates images in our heads of deep, dark forests of huge, old trees. An eastern, hardwood version of those huge, open redwood and sequoia forests of the Pacific coast. What we are visualizing is actually a climax forest – that ultimate stage of a centuries-long process of plant succession. It’s plant succession that is still unfinished in the disturbed forest of Albright Grove.

Plant succession is an interesting process. You see it every September as your family’s vegetable garden winds down for another year, and the grass and weeds creep in. You see it whenever a farmer stops tilling or cutting his field. Almost immediately weeds and shrubs begin their invasion, followed quickly (here in East Tennessee) by the cedars and pines. These are the “pioneer species” because they are the first to arrive. Interestingly, these pioneers create the conditions for their own demise by creating shade and soil changes that enable other species to grow. If the land is sunny and dry then the pines will dominate. If the location is moist and cool then after a few decades, hardwoods will replace the pines. The only question is which species of hardwood will win the battle – Maple? Hickory? Oak? That, too, depends on elevation, moisture, soil type, plus a little bit of random luck.

It’s an evolution of sorts but not the type that Darwin wrote about. It’s not the evolution of a species; it’s actually an evolution (or “development,” if you prefer that word) of the relationships between species. If this was a human community, it would be studied by sociologists, but since it’s plants and animals, the folks who study it are ecologists. Either way, it’s a community that is developing, a botanical and zoological community.

This process of plant succession continues for hundreds of years until this forest community reaches maturity, the climax, usually a deeply shaded forest with a high canopy and shade-loving plants on the forest floor. It’s the cathedral that Phyllis and I were expecting as we stepped off Maddron Bald Trail and onto Albright Loop Trail.

So now, with your expectations adjusted – not necessarily lowered, just adjusted – you can spend four or five hours enjoying the beauty of this part of the park. Go and enjoy this old, virgin, evolving forest. Just remember that it’s a changing forest community, not a cathedral. At least, not yet.