Rangers find several trees of record size in one grove

Daily American Republic

SILVA, Mo. -- The St. Francis River holds more secrets than any of us can imagine, but in the past two years park rangers John Daves and Eric Lemons have uncovered four of them.

Daves and Lemons are employed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Wappapello Lake.

The rangers found a grove of giant trees within a six-mile stretch west and northwest of Silva, and four of the big trees have been measured and designated as state record holders for their species.

State record trees are determined by adding circumference in inches, with height in feet, and one-quarter of the tree's spread in feet (three figures) to come up with a total score.

Daves is credited with nominating the first state record tree for Wayne County, and he and Lemons are credited with locating the other three record holders.

Daves at first thought the first tree was a black oak and when it was measured by personnel with the Missouri Department of Conservation, they identified it as a northern red oak. The giant tree is 17 feet, 2 inches in circumference and 119 feet tall with a total score of 350. The tree is about a mile west of Highway 67 off of Wayne County Road 306.

The northern red oak is listed under Missouri State Record Trees as a co-champion. A northern red oak in Franklin County is not as tall at 104 feet but has a total score of 352.

Daves and Lemons located the three other state record holders in summer 2001. The three are a 101-foot-tall sugar maple, a 107-foot-tall bitternut hickory and a 125-foot-tall shellbark hickory.

Cape Girardeau County has the most record-holding trees at 15, followed by Jackson County with 11 and Mississippi County with nine.