By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent SHOALS, Ind. — The public is invited to help the Indiana Department of Natural Resources find more than 100 big trees across the state.
The department’s Division of Forestry is updating its register of big trees by looking for the largest tree for each of the state’s 113 native species, said Janet Eger, the state’s big tree coordinator and district forester for the Division of Forestry.
The register was last updated in 2005 and the new register is expected to be complete by May 2010, she said.
Indiana’s Big Tree Register was first published in 1974 and is modeled after a national register created in 1945 by the American Forestry Assoc. (now American Forest), Eger said. A big difference between the two is that the state register only lists trees considered native to the state, while the national register also lists non-native trees, Eger said.
“We follow the species listed by Charles Deam in his book, Trees Of Indiana, written in 1912,” Eger said. “He was Indiana’s first state forester.”
The national register is updated every two years, and the state’s, every five years. “It’s a fair amount of work,” she said. “We just can’t do it every two years. We can’t afford to.”
A tree is considered based on three measurements: total height in feet, total circumference in inches and one-quarter of the average crown spread in feet, Eger said.
The numbers are added together for a point index.
The sycamore tree is the state’s biggest of the big, she said. While large trees are all across the state, there generally seem to be more in central and southern Indiana.
Anyone may nominate a tree, and people shouldn’t be worried about getting an exact measurement when submitting a tree for consideration, Eger said.
“People will ask, ‘How do you expect me to measure this tree?’” she said. “We want you to give us your best measurements, but all nominated trees are measured by volunteers to verify those measurements.”
Nomination forms are available at www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/files/big_tree_nom.pdf and the site also includes tips on how to properly and safely measure a tree, Eger said.
“We hope to get a lot of different nominations,” she said. “Nominations were down in 2005 and we hope that picks up for this year.”
The deadline for submitting trees for the 2010 register is Oct. 31.
Indiana gained a national champion big tree last year, according to the national register. A Jack Pine on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette is the largest known of its species.
The national register lists two other champion trees in Indiana, though neither is included in the state register because they are not considered species native to the state. An American Smoketree on the Purdue campus and a Royal Paulownia in Evansville are the largest of their species, according to the national register.
Previous champion trees are remeasured as a part of updating the state register, Eger said.
“There’s a huge turnover in champion trees, as much as 60 to 80 percent,” she said.
“They can be lost in storms, and they suffer the ravages of time. Things can happen to trees.”
The register is a recognition program and does not provide any legal status for a tree, Eger said. “We do give out certificates, but it’s about the honor of knowing you have the biggest tree.”
The 2005 state register may be viewed at www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/files/bigtree2005.pdf |
