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State aims to make short list of tall trees

Tribune photo by JIM REED

Dunedin arborist Alan Mayberry takes a measurement of the trunk. State forestry division is seeking nominations for champion trees.

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By DENNIS JOYCE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 11, 2009

TAMPA - If you've ever said to yourself, "Now that's a big tree," Florida wants to hear from you.

The Division of Forestry is taking nominations for The Florida Champion Trees List, a collection of more than 260 trees deemed tops in their species.

A solicitation on the Forestry Web site comes just as tree aficionados gather for the Trees Florida 2009 Conference, which starts Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota and is sponsored by the Forestry Division and Florida Power & Light.

"People just like big trees," said Charlie Marcus, the state's urban forestry coordinator. "It gives them a sense of history, of continuity."

Those may be cherished qualities in a state as transient as Florida, where, according to the census, 58 percent of the population was born somewhere else.

Poet e.e. cummings was grateful "for the leaping greenly spirits of trees." With more champion trees (86) than any state but Arizona (94), Florida can boast plenty of arboreal spirit.

Nationwide, there are 733 champion trees, according to the private group American Forests, which started keeping a national register in 1940 and devised a tree point system. Champion criteria include diameter, height and spread of the crown.

The biggest concentration of champion trees in Florida is in tropical areas, including Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys. That's partly because many don't grow anywhere else in the United States.

Listing doesn't offer a tree any special protection, Marcus said. But many listed trees are protected by local communities, including Tampa, which has a Grand Tree Project.

Two listed trees are in the Tampa Bay area – the national champion gumbo-limbo tree at Desoto Memorial Park, 3000 75th St. N.W. in Bradenton, and an emeritus champion South Florida slash pine in a lush residential neighborhood along Dunedin's Gulf Coast.

For four years, the Dunedin tree reigned without fanfare – no plaques, no tours – until it was dethroned this year by some trees in Sarasota.

"It just got edged out," said Alan Mayberry, Dunedin's city arborist. "It probably survived the hurricane of 1921."

That was the storm that split Caladesi Island from Honeymoon Island in Dunedin, creating a channel between them.

Florida started its register in 1975 and the list is constantly changing. The Bay area has boasted other champion trees through the years. Some still bear the plaques.

Mayberry recalls another big pine in Pinellas County's Crystal Beach, toppled in one of the storms of 2004. He counted 161 rings in the fallen trunk, which, using a rough one-new-ring-a-year calculation, means the tree was a sapling during the Second Seminole War.

To nominate a champion tree, go to the Florida Division of Forestry's Web site. A local forester will visit to verify the measurements.

But if you're looking at a monster live oak, be prepared to pull out a tape measure, said Marcus, the state coordinator.

"A number of people think have largest live oak, but you don't have any idea without seeing how big some of them can get," Marcus said. "We'll try to at least get an estimate on the measurements before we send someone out there."

Editor Dennis Joyce can be reached at (813) 259-7604.

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