Tucked away in Saratoga Spa State Park stands a patch of trees forgotten by time.
The hemlocks, oaks and beeches there are old growth forest -- where the trees tower over the forest floor. Such forests make up just one-half of 1 percent of forests in the United States.
These ancient trees have large trunks and pronounced roots, and they tend to intertwine, giving the look they are embracing. "They're tall," said Alli Schweizer, Saratoga Spa State Park's naturalist, scanning the tree canopy off Crescent Avenue. "Their age is between 200 and 300 years."
About 200 acres of old growth forest exists in Albany, Saratoga and Schenectady counties and, within a short drive, are the thousands of acres in the Adirondacks.
"It's sort of like walking back in time. You get to see what the original landscape often looked like," said Fred Breglia, president of the New York Old Growth Forest Association. "They are classic storybook forests."
As horticultural director at the Landis Arboretum in Esperance, Schoharie County, Breglia knows the delight of discovering old growth forest and the battles to protect it. The arboretum has about 15 acres of the centuries-old trees.
When some land was donated to the arboretum, someone hiking discovered that land also has some of the ancient trees.
"There's a lot more stands of old growth than people realize," Breglia said. "We are (finding out about) more and more sites every year."
Such old growth forest once covered the eastern half of the country, much of the West Coast and some of the Rockies. Now, New York and North Carolina have the largest tracts remaining.
"The general rule for finding old growth is that the harder it is to get to, the more likely it's going to be left alone," Breglia said.
He and others with the New York Old Growth Forest Association want to see laws enacted to protect the ancient survivors.
"There are all these protections for endangered animals," Breglia said. "There isn't any sort of protection no matter how large or old a tree is. There are no laws in place unless it's a rare plant."
He pointed to 2001, when the Western New York Old Growth Forest Survey got the state to protect trees within the Zoar Valley Gorge along the Erie and Cattaraugus county line. Those 585 acres contain some of the state's tallest trees -- reaching up to 150 feet high.
"We're trying to create as much awareness of such sites as we can," Breglia said. "I would like to see that we have laws put in place to protect those historic landmarks and to protect what our country looked like."The Times Union
