Go BIG!

Big trees command our respect.  I keep busy year-round picking up the constant rainfall of dead twigs from my ancient backyard sugar maple.  I carefully mow around it in summer, and pray an ice storm doesn’t take it down in winter. Its shade allows us to live without air conditioning, and its age lends my garden a sense of rootedness that a sugar maple sapling couldn’t convey. 

Live with a big tree, and it starts to make sense that some of the ancients worshipped them.  How does a living thing get to be so huge?  Think of the high winds, ice storms, and lightning bolts a monster tree survives.  What can a big tree tell us about the environment, and how conditions have changed over time?  Big trees make gardeners feel humble, since no person can live long enough to grow a truly big tree from a seed.

Although most of us don’t exactly worship big trees, we can still celebrate them.  Searching out and tabulating noteworthy trees is one way to accomplish this.  American Forests, a pro-tree group, has maintained a national register of champion trees since 1940, and today you can see the current tally of nearly 900 specimens on their website (Americanforests.org).  The register has been described as the “hotbed of new champs, dethroned favorites, and much-sought-after bragging rights.”  One of the kings of the register surely must be the coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) living in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in California.  This national treasure is 321 feet tall with a 75 foot spread and a trunk measuring 950 inches in circumference.  The largest American holly (Ilex opaca), found in Rosebud, Arkansas, is much shorter, but still an impressive 64 feet tall with a trunk of 182 inches circumference.  Champions are based on adding trunk circumference, height and ¼ of the average crown to achieve a point total.  Trunk circumference is measured at 4 ½ feet from the ground.  The tree with most points wins; in case of a tie, co-champions are named.  A list of national challengers, or runners-up, is kept in case something should befall the top tree.  It all sounds much more civilized than our Electoral College system. 

New York also has a state list of giant trees, kept by the Department of Environmental Conservation.  Rensselaer County can proudly claim one champion.  Trojan Warren Broderick found the largest dotted hawthorn (Crataegus punctata), which measures 20 feet tall with a 75 inch trunk circumference.  Another former champ from Rensselaer County, a giant eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides), was de-posed by larger trees from Clinton and Livingston counties, which are currently serving as co-champions.  There are no kings from Albany and Columbia counties, but maybe no one there is looking carefully enough.  The tallest-of-all honor goes to two eastern white pines (Pinus strobus), both 152 feet tall, and living in Warren and Franklin counties.  Are these the biggest white pines in the state?  Perhaps, but go for a walk and find one bigger!