THE BLADE
Toledo, Ohio, Thursday April 19, 2001



Century-old champion at
Woodlawn will be missed

by Steve Pollick

It was a giant of a tree, a state champion no less, and it died in a fall last Thursday at Woodlawn Cemetery in a violent windstorm.

The fallen champ was a white fir, and it dated to the early days of Woodlawn, which was started in 1876. Tim Haney, the city supervisor of cemeteries and an admirer of trees, counted at least 105 years' worth of growth rings on the stump.

Haney, who nominated the giant in 1983, said it was one of three state champion white firs. When it was nominated the mighty fir had a trunk circumference of more than 6-1/2 feet, a height of 75 feet, and a 30-foot spread It was the broad crown that actually gained it the champion status, Haney said. He was executive director at Woodlawn at the time.

"One of my best memories was spending about a half-hour with a telescope with Tom Anderson, watching a red crossbill. It was right up on the tip" The crossbill is a much sought species by area birders, being one of the more unusual winter finches that visit from farther north.

"It seemed as though in the last seven or eight years the tree had hardly grown," said Haney. It was rooted on a small island, surrounded by blacktop lanes, just across a bridge near a Medical College of Ohio marker.

The tree had developed two areas of very dense growth in its later years. "That obviously sapped a lot of strength from other areas."

Woodlawn has another champion tree, a purple-leafed European beech he added, It measured 68 feet high with a nearly 17-foot girth and an 82-1/2-foot crown when it was ranked in 1996. Another state champion tree, an eastern redbud, grows on private property on Eastbrook Drive.