Well, friends, it’s official! The living collection of Cypress Lawn Arboretum has a confirmed national champion tree – the largest of its species documented in cultivation in the continental U.S. Our champion is a Grecian fir, also known by the Latin binomial Abies cephalonica.
This specimen tree has been confirmed and documented in the California Big Tree Registry, which is organized by Cal Poly’s Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute and the scientist team of Dr. Matt Ritter.
Foliage Detail
A native tree of the foothills and mountains of Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, as well as the Greek island Cephalonia (or Kefalonia) from which the species’ Latin name derives, this evergreen plant is rare in cultivation in the Bay Area or in broader California’s urban forest. Our giant is as unique to San Francisco as it is massive!
The registry’s scoring system (which you may read more about here) factors in three primary metrics of a tree’s size. These are:
- Crown spread, or the horizontal distance across the tree from one branch tip to another; the average length measurable across the tree crown;
- Tree height, from ground surface to tip of central leader, or the tree’s highest vertical point;
- Circumference, the distance around a tree’s trunk. This measurement is generally taken at breast height, or approximately 4.5 feet above grade.
Our fir has the following measurements, for a combined overall score of 348.5 points:
- Crown spread: 90 feet
- Tree height: 100 feet
- Circumference: 226 inches
While precise records of the date of planting of this tree, as with most of the heritage collection of plants at Cypress Lawn Arboretum, was lost in the great earthquake fire of 1906, this one tree is believed to be an original planting of our living collection from the founding days of the cemetery, likely dating back to the late 1800s and well over 100 years of age – a centurial specimen, indeed!
This plant stands, burly buttress roots and all, on the northern edge of Section K in the heart of Cypress Lawn’s original East Campus. Notably, a significant root crown excavation and mulch ring have been implemented as measures of restorative and proactive arboriculture for this tree’s health care, revealing an incredible root morphology; there is alwayssomething beautiful buried out of sight when it comes to the wonder of the wooden ones!
This individual Abies cephalonica grows adjacent to the mausoleum of the Luhrs-Webster family, a regal but austere colonnaded granite structure immediately to the east of the tree. I cannot help but imagine how the roots of the fir may have grown around to encircle the stone footings, hidden underfoot. They may never be seen…
Join me in celebrating this national champion tree, which will be proclaimed as the celebratory tree of our 6th annual Arboretum Day this coming autumn. May she grow tall and long on into the coming decades, as a perpetual champion (with soon-to-be companion?) far beyond our own time.
