By William Godwin
Texas A&M Department of EntomologyTEXAS: Wood Co. Hainsville, 3.5 mi.SW.
@ Godwin Woods. 28-30/IV/2000
32°42’30″N;95°24’30″W
The most collecting was done around our home base at Godwin Woods. This locality is characterized by the trees Carpinus caroliniana (American Hornbeam) and Ostrya virginaca (Eastern Hop Hornbeam). We were on the Weches formation where Lake Fork Creek intersects this resistant layer of glauconitic green sandy clay with iron ore limonite layers.The Weches makes steep wooded bluffs here overlooking Lake Fork Creek. In counties to the South the Weches glauconite is mined for low grade road material. Glauconite is the water-bearing carbonate of iron and potassium,it contains a little Al, Mg, Na, Be, Co, Cr, Ni, Mo, V, Ti, U,etc. It is sometimes used as a fertilizer or soil additive. The alkaline soils of the Weches formation are rare in the sea of poor acid soils of East Texas and the greater South.
There is no evidence of clear-cutting or very intensive tree harvesting at the Godwin Woods. The presence of two state champion trees that are also soon to be national champions of their species indicate the maturity of the forest here.
Carpinus caroliniana
Ostrya virginaca
Godwin Woods lies along Lake Fork Creek and although mostly upland, it does have a narrow fringe of bottomland that is contiguous with the big Sabine bottoms about five miles downstream. The transition from Weches forest to bottomland forest is abrupt here on the sides of the bluff. The state champion Nyssa sylvatica (black gum) is the most striking sign that you have left the Weches forest and entered the bottoms.
State champion Nyssa Sylvatica at GodwinWoods. It is 110 feet tall and 232 inches (nearly 20 feet) in circumference.
State champion Xanthoxylum clavaherculis at Godwin Woods