This Issue

Big, Old Trees

Winter is the premier season to admire big trees. I'm not talking about enormous evergreens decorated for the holidays. I mean really big trees­champions of growth­with girth, height, and crown ample enough to mark them as giants. Gary Legwold takes up the story of five such remarkable specimens in "Looking Up to Champion Trees." He makes his pilgrimage to see these elders in early spring, when snow still covers the ground and the branches are bare. The trees' skeletal appearance makes them stand out, he says.

Bob Kloubec, a.k.a. Mr. Tree, also prefers winter to hunt for big trees so he can see deeper into the forest. Kloubec lives near the Minnesota?North Dakota border and travels in search of champions for national and state registers of big trees. For Minnesota's native big tree registry, he found the 52-foot-tall champion peachleaf willow with a circumference of 221 inches in Moorhead.

Where do big-tree hunters look for champs? When the national registry was established 60 years ago, founder Joseph Stearns called on Americans to save "the giants scattered throughout our remaining virgin forest stands." Big trees are, indeed, a feature of most old-growth forests. But because such stands are scarce, and because the registry formulas favor trees with spreading crowns, big-tree hunters often do best when scouting for titans in old cemeteries and homesteads, where lone trees have room to stretch their limbs. The Afton cemetery, for example, has a gargantuan Norway spruce, a nonnative grown from nursery stock in Civil War times.

Native big trees generally owe their long lives to prime habitat. On poor sites, such as peatlands, very old trees may not be very big. Given adequate sunlight, soil, and water, a young tree can grow like a weed. Of course, the cost of living goes up every year as the tree adds a new sheath from crown to roots. To survive, a big tree must garner access to huge volumes of soil and water.

"Because they're so big, they own the block," says DNR forester Tom Eiber. Think of a big bur oak in a field, he says: When a raindrop falls on its 40 acres, that tree's got it. If you could trace the lateral roots of a 350-year-old bur oak with a 5-foot-diameter trunk, you might find a radius of one-quarter mile. When it rains, those roots take about 15 minutes to capture the moisture.

Water goes to the powerful. But the element of chance also becomes a factor in favor of big trees. Champion trees have been lucky enough to take root in the right spot and to escape catastrophe. Eiber recalls a regal white pine growing in a swale. Its location made it too difficult to log, and runoff into the low spot ensured a steady drink. Likewise, a tree needs luck to stay out of the path of a crown fire or straight-line wind.

Genetics too may come into play. Retired forester Larry Westerberg recalls a young stand of European larch near Red Wing. While all grew tall in ideal conditions, one super specimen sprung up 90 feet and put on 18 inches in diameter in just 32 years. In Forestville/ Mystery Cave State Park, genetics have favored a black walnut that is so exceptionally straight that foresters use it for propagation.

Minnesota's oldest known tree is believed to be a 1,100-year-old northern white cedar, according to forest ecologists Clifford Ahlgren and Isabel Ahlgren. It grows among alder, black ash, and aspen in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. No other cedars nearby are much more than 150 years old. The ancient tree's center is crumbly; its thick bark bears the deep fissures of old skin; and its massive bole ends in a somewhat ragged tip.

Whatever the reasons for spectacular growth and longevity, people particularly admire big, old trees. Legwold's story helps us see why we do. The sheer beauty of these forms, decrepit though they may be, attracts us. We see them as survivors­elders that have stood witness to history, human and natural, for many winters.