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The forest for the trees

A trek through the protected Lost 40 old-growth tract of south Arkansas RACHEL O'NEAL CHANEY ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE CALHOUN COUNTY-Sixteen years into an agreement to leave the Lost 40 untouched, botanist Theo Witsell was more interested in what he didn't see than what he did. Witsell was part of a seven-person group that recently made the trek into a remote south Arkansas forest that is being preserved by-of all things-a timber company. What Witsell didn't see was invasive plants-fast-growing nuisances like kudzu that can take over an area and strangle the native habitat. " There's none, " Witsell says of invasive plants, leaning over to get a better look at a small plant. " It's all native species. " How it got its name is debatable, but the Lost 40 is just what it sounds like: 40 acres of virtually untouched, virgin forest in southeastern Calhoun County-believed to be one of the few remaining pristine forests in Arkansas. Timber on all sides of the Lost 40 has been harvested. " The neat thing about the Lost 40 is the condition and the age and the maturity of the forest. That's what makes it rare, " says Witsell, a botanist with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission. " It is very rare to have an oldgrowth forest left where the trees are 200 years old, especially in southern Arkansas where the gentleness of the terrain has allowed a lot of timber management. There are very few places that have a mature hardwood loblolly pine forest left with the fullness and maturity. " On this trip into the Lost 40, Witsell was joined by two men from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, a representative of Potlatch Corp., a reporter and a photographer. Potlatch has owned the land for more than 50 years. In 1996, Potlatch and the Natural Heritage Commission signed a 40-year cooperative management agreement to preserve the Lost 40 as a living library. Since then, researchers make annual trips into the Lost 40 to check on conditions. Potlatch makes the arrangements for the private tours. " To some degree, they can use this to understand a possible range of conditions that would be out there, " Don Bragg, a research forester with the Forest Service-Southern Research Station, says of the preservation of the Lost 40. " Other people are just interested in old trees, big trees. It's got an aesthetic …