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“But those trees! Those trees!Those Truffula Trees!All my life I’d been searchingfor trees such as these.”

— From “The Lorax,’’by Dr. Seuss

BY BRYN NELSONSTAFF WRITER

The blacktupelo ishard tomiss.The largesttree in a

small grove at the edgeofMassapequaPreserve, it announcesits considerablepresence from theparking lot.The animated man in the Ha-waiian shirt and wooden clogstelling me— no, announcing—that this tupelo is perhapsmore than 300 years old isequally hard to miss.As a boy growing up in West

Hempstead and Lloyd Harbor,Daniel Karpen often wonderedif any old trees survived on LongIsland. Karpen is now 56, but hischild-likewonder remains.“I suspect this old one is inexcess of 300 years!” he saysnow of the tree looming aboveus. He will make many similardeclarations over the nextmonth. Many of them will re-quire exclamation points.And many of them — despitemydoubts—could even be true.Trees, in the words of Dr.Seuss, became the centerpieceof a morality play pitting thegreed of the Once-ler againstthe warnings of the Lorax.

“Mister!” he said with asawdusty sneeze,“I am the Lorax. I speak forthe trees.”

Trees, in the words of DanielKarpen, havebecome the center-piece of an environmental mis-sion. For theWinter 2004 Quar-terly Newsletter of the Long Is-land Botanical Society, Karpenwrote of discovering 10 sites onthe Islandwith old-growth blacktupelo trees. Three co-authorsassistedhim inhis search, includ-

ing Bruce Kershner, co-founderof the New York Old GrowthForest Association.“We want to get these docu-mented so people appreciatethem and they get preserved,”Karpen says of his finds. Nearlyall the sites are already on pro-tected land. But an unusually oldtree could spur new pride in anoverlooked park, not to mentionits potential power in fights overpreserving other open spaces.

Forgotten treesSince they tend togrow inwet-lands, black tupelos often es-caped the fate of other treescleared for farmland.The timberindustry likewise ignored theno-toriouslyhard treeswhosewoodwarps so easily. Largely forgot-ten, the slow-growing tupelosemerged from the shadows onlybriefly in the fall, with a flourishof brilliant red leaves.But tupelosmay yet have theirday in the sun. At theWertheimNationalWildlifeRefuge inShirl-ey,KarpenandKershner extract-ed straw-thin cores from twoold-looking trees, in a procedureakin to taking a biopsy. By count-ing the annual growth ringswith-in a wooden core, researchers

The tupelohunter

Daniel Karpen,tramping throughthe Massapequa

Preserve and,right, in his

signature clogs,says he can tellthe age of blacktupelo trees by

their barkpatterns.

ON THE COVER:Karpen takes the

measure of a treein Massapequa

Preserve.Newsday’s

Daniel Goodrichtook the picture.

Daniel Karpenis looking for theIsland’s oldest trees

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can deduce a tree’s age.Kershner tallied 260 yearsfor one tree, and three-hun-dred-sixty-three years for theother. Karpen lingers over eachsyllable because it draws atten-tion to the fact that, well, it’s areally old tree!And there’s something else.Karpen,who received abache-lor’s degree in forest resourcesfrom the University ofWashing-ton, believes other tupelos onthe Island are quite old becausetheir bark patterns tell him so.By 200 years, he explains, deepridges formaroundeach geomet-

ric bark piece, and some of thepieces loosen and fall away. By250 years, bald spots appearwhere the bark has fallen off andthe ridges around the remainingplates become very wide. Andon tupelos between 300 and 400years old, the bark re-thickensand displays new ridge forma-tions or long plates that separatefrom the trunk along the sides.But EdCook, a tree ring expertat Columbia University’s Lam-ont-Doherty Earth Observatory,urges caution. “The tendency ofpeople is to overestimate treeages because it’s fun to find oldtrees,” he says. “The only wayyou can authentically claim oldgrowth is by coring the trees.”Karpen is not easily dismissed,however. A self-employed con-sulting professional engineerand inventor, he has developed aknack for clever engineering so-lutions and arcane regulatoryroadblocks, the latter oftenwield-ed against developers during fre-quentHuntingtonTownHall ap-pearances. Karpen takes pride inhis seven patents — includingone for TruView glare-reducingheadlights — and for his role inenvironmental victories, includ-ing the preservation of Hunting-ton’s 209-acre Froehlich Farms.With his offbeat theatrics,colorful shirts and woodenclogs, he is not often forgotten.

The burst of springOn this Tuesday in April,

Massapequa Preserve seemspoised to explode with possibili-ties, and Karpen is dressed forthe occasion. His clogs havebeen paired with alarminglyfrayed tan woolen socks, navypants and a bright red Hawai-ian shirt. His thinning, grayishhair reaches toward his shoul-ders in a few loose curls, whilesome of the wispier strandsdance in the wind in clear defi-ance of the black comb in hisshirt pocket.“Walking around through thepoison ivy and measuring thetree,” he narrates while workingon his first old-growth contes-tant of theday.The converteddi-mensions on his metal tapemea-sure show 29 inches in diameter.Motioning toward the flat-tened tree top, he tells me theaccumulated breaks in the up-permost branches provide an-other indication of great age.As we walk deeper into thewoods, Karpen looks about inawe. The tupelos are easily 200to 300 years old, he says, hisvoice rising with excitement.Of the preserve’s 423 acres, “Iwould estimate that about 100acres are old growth,” he adds.But exactly when does a treebecome an old-growth tree?“I would define old-growthtrees to be trees at least 175 yearsold,” he says the first time I askhim — though he admits thenumber is fairly arbitrary. WhenI press him, he pooh-poohs the“old growth” debate as largelyphilosophical. After all, sometrees never reach old age butgrow in undisturbed tracts,while other tracts disturbed bycolonists may have since pro-duced trees exceeding 250 years.“Howmany angels can danceon the head of a pin?” he asks.His rhetorical question annoysme, but I learn later that “oldgrowth” has been defined indozens of different ways. Someresearchers no longer even con-sider the term useful.Discoveries of old trees onLong Island, on the other hand,have been rare. Ed Cook hasdated a stand of white oaks fromMontauk’s Hither Hills StatePark to the 1720s, based on theirtree rings. Karpen and othermembers of the New York OldGrowth Forest Association havelaunched their own searches. Astand of chestnut oaks in OysterBay likely dates back more than300 years, Karpen says, based onthe tree rings in a stump there.He has placedmost of his bets,though, on black tupelos.

As if eyeing contestantsKarpen’s quirky but effectivehistory of environmental activ-ism and forestry backgroundclearly bolster his credentials.But a question nags me: Is itpossible to want something somuch that an environmentalquest becomes a quixotic cru-sade?We hike into the park, and al-most every tree elicits an excla-mation, as if from a benevolentjudge eyeing the contestants ina beauty pageant.

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A black tupelo that Karpenthinks is over 300 years old.

NEWSDAY PHOTOS / DANIEL GOODRICH

The trees on preserves are safe, but Karpen also hopes to save those not on protected land.

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“Look at how thick the barkis up there,” he says of onelarge entrant. “That’s an indica-tion of great age!” he exclaimsin a high-pitched, nasal voice.He estimates its age at 350 to400 years. “Definitely 350 yearsat a minimum.”Other large tupelos demandseparate stops: A “monster” by anearby bike trail, and a lone sur-vivor in a bedraggled lot behindaKingKullen inWantagh.There was a long fight overthe lot, Karpen says, one thathe joined in the late ’80s. In theend, the three acres became aNassau County preserve. TwoMylar “Over the hill” balloonsbob in the upper branches of atulip poplar, as if in mock cele-bration of the lot’s reprieve.Finally, he finds the tree he’sbeen looking for, a black tupelowith twin trunks. The larger ofthe trunks measures 25.6 inchesin diameter, but a storm hascleaved its top at about 20 feet.Karpen estimates its age at 200years, an old-growth find by hisdefinition.Mission accomplished, de-spite a new hole in one of his

tattered socks.A little less than three weekslater, I meet Karpen at hisLloyd Harbor home for a sec-ond old-growth tour. Slippingon a pair of clogs, one of threelined up in his front hall, he in-sists on first showing me thethin wood core he extractedfrom a large tupelo and mount-ed on a small piece of plywood.We saw the tree by the creek inMassapequa Preserve — re-member? The core’s rings areso closely spaced that they canbe barely discerned with asmall black magnifying lens.“Isn’t that amazing?” he asks.

Hidden treasuresKarpen then leads me to atwo-acre woodlot preserved bythe benevolence of three neigh-bors. Technically, we’re tres-passing, but he’s sure theywon’t mind. He wants to showme three chestnut oaks that arenearly 200 years old, andthere’s an old tupelo some-where in here.As we clamber over logs andpass an abandoned plastic tricy-cle in a dry streambed, he listsevery living thing within hisfield of view, like a botany pro-

TREES from G6

coverstory

Tupelo hunterKarpensurveys awooded areanear hishouse inLloydHarbor.

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fessor dictating his finds.Hop hornbeam trees andtulip trees, American beechand red maple. Oh yes, swampwhite oak, witch hazel andblack birch. And over there —sweet bay magnolia, “but I be-lieve it’s introduced.” Shad-bush and sassafras and catbrier. And starflower.Shagbark hickory, too.“Also, there’s black walnutin here. I forgot to tell you.”And, finally, an old-growthblack tupelo, maybe the oldesttree in the forest. “Let’s say 200to 225. Could be older.”“I’ve found 20 stands of blacktupelo on Long Islandmore than175 years old and I believethere’s more to be discovered,”he declares before leaving thelot. “We are still discoveringmore old growth in the East thatwe never knew about.”Karpen hasn’t been here formore than a year, but the hiatusonly seems to fuel his enthusi-asm. “Have you ever seen amore magnificent forest in allyour life?”At the 20-acreWest Hills Na-ture Preserve in Huntington —our final stop — I imagine thatKarpen’s hikes all follow thesame meandering route, withspecies to name, aspects of na-ture to proclaim, and some-where around the bend, a note-

worthy tupelo or two to find.And, finally, there they are.Seven old black tupelos haveformed a rough semicirclearound a shallow vernal pond.“Aren’t these trees magnifi-cent?” he asks. It is by now afamiliar question. “Thesetrees are at least 250 to 300,and possibly mooooore.”And on it goes. Karpen lec-tures on the wonders of natureand urges me to buy hisglare-reducing headlights, andthen offers dating tips.“Do you want to know whata good way to pick up girls is?”he asks during one drive.“Um, what?”“Wooden shoes!”They’re a great icebreaker,he explains.It occurs to me later thatKarpen has nurtured his goofyeccentricity with the same careas the 17 black walnut seedlingspopulating his living room.Trees have formed an inte-gral part of his life, from thefirewood stacked on the tiledliving room floor, to The NewYork Times stacked in tower-ing piles on his aqua-coloredkitchen chairs. His white pailsfilled with the walnuts hecracks with the back of an ax,his four pairs of wooden clogs,his nine handmade woodenbowls — do I want to buy one?

— and the Sharp SF-7900 papercopier in his bedroom: All owetheir existence to trees, andeach is an homage, however un-usual.Carole Neidich-Ryder, thecurator of green space pre-serves for Nassau County’ssouthern half, tells me her terri-tory was once filled with farmsand paper mills. “So I would besurprised that there would besomething left here,” she says.But there was Daniel Karpen,coring a black tupelo at Mass-apequa Preserve with her per-mission, and then hurryinghome to count the tree rings.“I would be overjoyed to findan old-growth forest,” she says.“It gives a different slant, ormore depth, to speaking aboutthe forest here. Peoplewouldn’t take it so lightly.”And Karpen’s role?“Dan happens to be a verycreative, thoughtful scienceguy,” she says. “He’s always in-venting things. He just hap-pened to hit on this thing andhe’s ecstatic about it.”Verifying his finds, she adds,would help to preserve openspace and benefit everyone.But not every tree reveals itstrue age so readily.

400-plus growth ringsWhen I meet Neil Pederson,

he is barefoot in the tree ringlaboratory at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Agraduate student of Ed Cook’s,Pederson is exceedingly polite,unfailingly diplomatic, and in-tensely interested in old trees.For his show-and-tell, he re-trieves a small box from a backoffice and sets it on a table. In-side are wood-mounted plugstaken from 29 living blacktupelo trees in New York’s Ad-irondacks. More than two-thirds of the plugs contain 400annual growth rings or more.One black tupelo dates to atleast 1492. Another to 1436.Pederson figures he’s coredmore than 3,000 trees in all.“I still get fooled by lookingat a tree and saying, ‘Wow.That’s going to be such andsuch an age,’ ” he says.With their bark analysis, hemaintains, Daniel Karpen andother enthusiasts are keying inon tree vigor. “It means a treecan be old, but it doesn’t meanit has to be old.” Nevertheless,he welcomes the enthusiasm.“I like what they’re doing.They’re at least raising aware-ness.”And it isn’t unreasonable tothink that 300- to 400-year-oldblack tupelos might yet remainon Long Island. “Proving it isgoing to take time,” he says.Twoweeks later, the messag-es left on successive morningsare nearly identical. Karpenisn’t sure whether he’s told me,but he cored a tree in Mass-apequa Preserve.“The partial core was,” andhe pauses for effect, “three hun-dred-fifty-five years. Again,three-hundred-fifty-five years.”In both messages, the punchline arrives in the familiar tonethat suggests great importance.“So, basically, that’s the situa-tion,” he says at the end of thefirst message. “The trees are asold as I said they were.”Then he laughs slightly, aslight exhale. Is it aimed at mefor doubting him? Or simply asound of satisfaction?On the third morning, we dis-cuss the news, and his an-nouncement arrives as if forthe first time. It took him twohours to count the tiny ringswith his magnifying lens. Andsince he only retrieved about

8! inches of the tree’s 12-inchradius, he figures the tree mustbe 425 years old — maybemore.“It’s simply astounding onLong Island!”

685 years of historyIn the Northeast, NewHamp-shire probably has the bestclaim on astounding tupelos, atleast for now. Dan Sperduto, asenior ecologist with the state’sNatural Heritage Bureau, saysone of the black gums, as hecalls them, contained at least679 tree rings in 1998, making itat least 685 years old today.Is a black gum hard to core?“It is, relative to many oth-ers,” he says. But with a little ex-perience and preparation, a re-searcher can arrive at a reason-ably accurate age.And the bark? I tell himabout Karpen’s correlation be-tween tree bark and age.“I can relate to what he’s say-ing,” Sperduto says. “The oldestones that we cored did tend tohave those qualities, but wedidn’t quantify that in anyway.”And then it dawns on me.Karpenhasn’t seemedparticular-ly methodical or patient. Hehasn’t takenmeticulous notes, oroften returned to the black tupe-lo sites — now 23 and counting—where he’s already been.And yet, for the most part,he’s proven his point. Insteadof tilting at windmills in a Ha-waiian shirt and clogs, his sing-song, scattershot, free-spiritedmessage has been far simpler.And far more powerful.“Look at the trees!” he has in-sisted again and again.“Aren’t they amazing?”

And he spoke with a voicethat was sharpish and bossy.“Mister!” he said with asawdusty sneeze,“I am the Lorax. I speak forthe trees.”

Only instead of the magnifi-cent Truffula Trees of Dr.Seuss, this Lorax sought the un-sung tupelos that survived be-cause they were considereduseless. But with their discov-ery, the gnarled old trees mayyet prove far more valuable.Just don’t ask him exactlyhow old they are.

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NEWSDAY PHOTOS / BRYN NELSON

Surrounded by walnut seedlings, Karpen cracks a blackwalnut with the back of an ax on his living room floor.

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