IU home to state's BIGGEST yellowwood

Just outside the southwest corner of Rawles Hall, the biggest yellowwood in Indiana stretches its smooth, brown-barked limbs upward.\nFew, if any, seem to notice.\nThe Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Forestry Department measures and lists the state's biggest arboreal specimens in its Big Tree Register, but IU's lone entry is relatively anonymous among its bare-leafed campus counterparts. And although IU's champion tree might be listed more for the relative rarity of yellowwoods in the state than because of its sheer size, few at IU seem familiar with the distinction at all.\nAsk anyone inside Rawles' Hall, where the math department is housed inside and the tree outside, and people are generally aware of the cluster of yellowwoods -- just unsure about any champion title. Ask inside Jordan Hall's biology department, just a few blocks down Third Street from the tree itself, and some are aware of the yellowwoods, but no one seems to know anything about owning the biggest in the state.\nThis doesn't come as a surprise to District Forester Ralph Unversaw, who is charged with measuring trees in this region for the register.\n"No, to be honest, most people don't know what type of trees they do have," he said. "Most people don't realize the number of different types of trees IU has. But you are not going to be able to find what they have on IU's campus anywhere else. They have species I've never even seen."\nUnversaw has measured IU's yellowwood several times in the last 15 years, for each of the last three editions of the Big Tree Register. It has been the yellowwood champion of the state since then, even though a 1996 snowstorm damaged its trunk. Attaining champion status means it has the highest index number in the state, which is the sum of its circumference four-and-a-half feet above the ground, its total height and a quarter of its crown spread. \nThe crown spread is the average of the widest point and narrowest point above the branches and leaves.\nUnversaw said he hopes to help revive a publication that documents IU's tree life for walking tours. He said he'd like to rejuvenate interest in the impressive trees that IU has.\n"(IU) has such a vast wealth of trees," he said. "There is one in the northeast corner of Dunn's woods -- it's so unusual, I can't even describe it." \nIU's yellowwood will also be the champion in the next edition, which will be released in April. That means the tree will retain its biggest-in-the-state status at least until 2010. \nJanet Eger, who coordinates the Big Tree program for the state, said it's surprising so few are aware of IU's yellowwood.\n"This tree at IU has been champion for quite awhile," she said. "(Promoting the big trees) is up to the landowners. But, we do have some that take a great deal of pride in having champion trees and have very nice signs."\nKeith Clay, biology professor and the director of IU's research and teaching preserve, hadn't heard of IU's champion status but said he is somewhat skeptical of big tree rankings in general. He said those that get nominated are often those that people come in contact with and those people care for differently than if a tree grew without human interaction. \n"It's a little bit of a fluke," Clay said. "You get them in cemeteries, back yards and campuses like IU. Trees in the wild don't grow like this."\nClay said he's more interested in a patch of virgin forest in the Lilly-Dickey Woods in Brown County, a reserve donated to IU in 1942 for botanical research and art studies. He said he thinks some arboreal records could be broken in patches of forest that have never been documented.\n"We think we have some of the biggest," he said. "There are enormous trees out there."\nEger, though, said people should take advantage of seeing such an impressive yellowwood so close to home. She said the best part of her job is seeing the different big trees and the intrigue they evoke.\n"It's as much fun for me to see them as for the people who nominate them," she said. "Part of that is because I often get to meet the people who own the tree and the enthusiasm and excitement they have for the large tree is very contagious."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Gavin \nLesnick at glesnick@indiana.edu.