Research Report #22 — Witches’ Brooms in the Shawangunks
For many years scientists and naturalists have been studying and observing the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge. Foremost among them was Daniel Smiley, for whom Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center is named. Dan wrote numerous reports summarizing his observations on various topics. This regularly occurring series will feature some of these reports; some hold tremendous scientific value today and just await an interested researcher to follow up, others showcase a quirky sense of humor or highlight an oddity of nature.
Read the report: Witches’ Brooms in the Shawangunks. November, 1980. Daniel Smiley.
A note from Paul C. Huth, Director of Research Emeritus:
Walking down a path at the Preserve with Dan Smiley, I was always surprised at his keen awareness of all the things around him and understanding what he was really “seeing.” Some years ago I was interviewed by Jim Metzner, producer of the well known program, Pulse of the Planet. Jim was recording a segment on the return of Peregrine Falcons to the Shawangunk Mountains for his series “Science Diary.” In our background dialogue on the east side of Sky Top, the conversation settled on the very same subject-what was I “seeing” when I was out on a walk down a path or carriage road on the Preserve. It has made me think a lot since then about the different experiences each of us have every time we are out on the land, and what we are really “seeing.”
In this regard, Dan, from his life long experience on the land here in the Shawangunks and nearby Catskill Mountains, had trained himself as he said, to be especially attentive to subtle things that were outside of what he would consider “normal” in familiar surroundings. For example, plants with especially large leaves one spring, depauperate plants, plants with different flowers or leaves, unfamiliar insects, odd bird behavior, unexpected small mammals, as well as sounds and smells that he didn’t recognize. Not that he didn’t “see” the regular or “normal” things, but many discoveries were made because Dan looked for things that stood out to him on his regular rounds.
So it was with witches’ brooms. The first record of a witches’ broom we have from Dan was one found on a Pitch Pine along Forest Drive in July, 1963. No size or description was made. Following up on that first record, Dan and fellow naturalist Fred N. Hough, as part of the Research Committee of the John Burroughs Natural History Society, wrote short articles in the JBNHS newsletter The Chirp in October and November 1963, describing witches’ brooms for members. In his article, Dan wrote that witches’ brooms “….take the form of erect bunches of thin branches….at times they appear to be like birds’ nests, or with a little imagination they may be seen as “brooms” sweeping the sky as clouds move by.” He mentioned the causes of most witches’ brooms as likely a fungus or a mite. Causes can also include parasitic mistletoes, viruses, and “phytoplasmas.”
From 1963 until his 1980 report, Dan and Preserve research staff documented some 31 witches’ brooms in the Shawangunks on nine species of trees, three coneriferous and six deciduous. Dan found that witches’ brooms on conifers were….“almost invariably globular in shape, while those on deciduous (trees) were “brooms” usually consisting of bunches of vertical twigs.” Sizes of brooms ranged from small tufts on hardwoods like Basswood, Red Oak, and Black and White Birch, to very large ones up to 96 inches in diameter on White Pine.
Since 1980, we have continued to add records of new locations of witches’ brooms. We have been saddened to see some Hemlock trees that have harbored witches’ brooms slowly dying from the decades long affects of the three pronged attack of Woolly Adelgid, Elongate Hemlock Scale and Spruce Spider Mites. In these cases, it appeared the thicket of broom branches held their green needles longer than surrounding limbs. In 1982, I added the record of a brushy broom in the top limbs of a large mature Honey Locust tree. The tree was unfortunately removed as part of view clearing for a new subdivision. More recently a broom was discovered in a Shadbush, the broom with leaves darker than the surrounding leaves.
Read the report: Witches’ Brooms in the Shawangunks. November, 1980. Daniel Smiley.
