Is this Smoketree big?

This is my neighbor's tree. I haven't seen one even close to this size. Is it a large one?

Al size doesn't matter. It is a beautiful one though! We have large height smoke trees in Michigan next to the road but this one is a biggie.

Al,

That's a nice one, but they can get much bigger--even in Wisconsin. According to the DNR's champion tree registry, there's one in Brown County (not too far from you) that's supposedly 55' tall with a 50' spread. I think its going to be a few years before mine approaches those dimensions.

American Forests just came out with their updated Nat'l Register of Big Trees, and the listed champion resides at Purdue U., and is 56' high with a 32' spread. I'm sure Guy can provide much more detail on this tree.

Bob

Thanks,
I just don't normally think of Smoketrees being big enough for kids to climb. My neighbor sometimes talks about cutting it down for the mess, but I tell him it doesn't bother me and is special.
My 'purple' grew 8' last year after dieing back -this winter it didn't have any dieback so we'll see how big it gets. Sof - it must be how I use it then.

That Purdue champion smoke tree has a great story. At this point, I will introduce the esteemed Guy Sternberg, to tell its story. Guy?

Scott

I had admired it even during my college days in the 60s, seen from the window of one of my classes in the Hort Building at Purdue. Then a few years ago, I read in an alumni newsletter that the university, which owned the city block including the smoketree house, planned to drop a new "visual and performing arts" building on top of it. I wrote to them and asked how they planned to work around the national chamipon tree -- the response was, "what tree?"

After a couple of exchanges, I realized that the architects knew nothing about trees and had no desire to revise their plans at that point. I contacted the campus arborist, who was dismayed over the situation and fed me info but was not in a position to challenge his superiors about it.

So I went globally postal. E-mails started flying around among retired professors I had known at Purdue, various tree societies, and arborists worldwide. Soon Purdue began hearing from tree people across the country and from my tree friends throughout Europe, China, South America, etc. Had I been a member of DG back then, you guys would have been dragged into the fray as well.

Result: Purdue bit the bullet and did the right thing. They hired one of those big-tree-moving companies to relocate the tree (actually, the entire yard in which it was growing!) to another place on the south side of the campus. It was the first time anyone had moved a national champion tree, and thus far (six years later) it's still doing OK in its new home, This despite having been tipped over by a storm shortly after the transplant, then righted again with heavy equipment and guyed with aircraft cable!

I hope others will be inspired and encouraged to rally similarly for such causes. If we don't, who will? Here is the tree last fall -- that's me at left for scale. The rootball that was transplanted was about the size of the mulched area and roughly 6 feet deep.

Guy S.