Meeting Minutes
Wednesday October 5th, 2022
6PM @ Black Hill Ranger Station
Attendees:
Dori Murphy Katie Kranich Tom Frederick
John Bennett Ron Anderson Kathie Jarmon
Matt Spiroff
Ron brought the meeting to order at 6:04 PM.
The October minutes were reviewed and approved.
Treasurer’s report
1) John reported no changes to the board’s accounts. No changes to the CD rate.
2) The board voted to approve writing a check to purchase 2000 white pine seedlings to give away to Cecil County schools. The approved check amount was $425.
Maryland Big Tree
Program Update:
John gave the county report, and details are provided below:
MBTP Report – October
No trees were
measured or re-measured in Cecil County.
I received 2 signed permission forms—one for the staghorn sumac and the
other for the pair of European beech.
Both are in North East. Shawn Day
also gave permission to measure the black oak at the ranger station. Kathie reports the mimosa on MD 273 is
unlikely to qualify as the minimum at 60% is 147 points. Kathie’s estimate is 127 points. I submitted a previously measured sycamore at
Elk Neck State Park to the Forestry For The Bay Monster Tree Contest and it won
2nd place.
Volunteers
measured/re-measured 34 trees in October—nearly a record number—as follows:
Baltimore City – 7; Baltimore – 7; Carroll – 2; Frederick –
4; Howard – 13; Montgomery – 1.
Two trees in Frederick were re-measurements as well as 7 in
Howard; the remaining are new trees. 4
trees in Howard County were found to be deceased. There are 79 trees remaining to be
re-measured in 2022.
Fred Chalfant,
Baltimore City Forestry Board, is now employed by the
BC Division of Forestry and put in charge of updating the BC big tree
collection. In October he has been
working with volunteers to canvas the grounds of the Cyburn Arboretum, which is
now owned by the Division. In October he
and his team found and measured 7 new trees that were previously not
registered. Six trees are new State
Champions; 5 of them are new species to the Maryland register. All are natives; most are native to
Maryland. Most are small, shrub-like
trees that don’t usually grow large enough to be noticed by volunteers and/or
qualify as trees.
MD natives: Cockspur
hawthorn, Gray Dogwood, Winged Sumac, Fringetree, American Plum,
Buttonbush. The other tree, a limber pine, is a native of the American
west.
Below are some photos
of some of my favorite trees from October:
NRCC Update:
·
No NRCC update due to Gabrielle being absent.
Website Update:
Ron gave the update:
· The September meeting minutes were posted to the board’s website in October, in addition to the November meeting agenda.
· No Maryland Big Tree Program trees to upload, and no NRCC photos to upload in October.
Old Business:
· Matt provided a report on the Maryland Forestry Board Association Meeting in October.
New Business:
· The board would like to reach out to Elk Neck State Park managers to let them know they won second place in the Forestry For The Bay Monster Tree Contest.
· There will be no December meeting of the board.
The meeting was adjourned approximately 7:15 PM.
The next meeting will be held on January 4th, at 6:00 PM.