New brochure tells story behind historic campus trees

This sugar maple (scientific name, Acer saccharum) on Muir Knoll off Observatory Drive is one of the trees included in the one-hour, one-kilometer Bascom Hill Tree Walk.

Amid the canopy of 6,000 trees adorning the UW–Madison campus, some trees stand out as living history lessons.

A new brochure profiles more than 80 of these unique and noteworthy trees, and invites people on a step-by-step natural history tour along the oldest swath of campus on Bascom and Observatory hills.

“Campus Tree Walks,” a 28-page brochure created by UW–Madison’s environmental management office, brings the university’s 150-year legacy of tree plantings into focus. Intended as a supplement to self-guided interpretive walks, the brochure includes route maps, historical stories and photos, and scientific information about unique tree species.

“From what I know about urban campuses across the country, we have a unique legacy here,” says Daniel Einstein, environmental management coordinator at UW–Madison. Areas like Bascom and Observatory hills and the Lake Mendota shoreline have dense concentrations of mature trees dating back, in some cases, to the very first tree plantings in 1851, he says.

Included in the profiles are Sesquicentennial Trees, which are estimated to be at least 150 years old. Einstein estimates there are 50 trees of that vintage left on campus. Two stately American elms on Bascom Hill, which were part of the first 700 trees planted in 1851 and 1852, are detailed in the brochure.

The oldest tree on campus is the President’s Bur Oak, located behind the Washburn Observatory overlooking Lake Mendota. This majestic tree, more than 300 years old, was around more than a century before European settlement, when Native American gatherings were held at effigy mounds located on what is now Observatory Hill.

Four trees on the walks are designated as Wisconsin Champion Trees, which means they are the largest trees of their species documented in Wisconsin. One official “champion tree” — the scholartree — is located next to North Hall. The scholartree, which creates a burst of white flowers in summer, is often planted near Buddhist temples in its native China.

Einstein says other trees were experimental plantings from famous botany and horticulture professors, where the campus served as a test bed for unique tree varieties. One of those is the Regal Hybrid Elm near Hiram Smith Hall, one of the first hybrids developed at UW–Madison that displays resistance to Dutch Elm Disease. Hybrids like this one may help elms flourish again in American cities, years after they were nearly wiped out by the disease.

Einstein says people often see landscapes as “nondescript green backdrops,” but there’s value in learning about the living legacy of UW–Madison’s 150 species of trees. “People can gain an appreciation for the need to maintain diversity in any environment,” he says. “This project reaches people where they live.”

Copies of the brochure will be distributed free to the public at Allen Centennial Gardens and the Campus Assistance and Visitor Center in the renovated Red Gym. For more information, contact Einstein at (608) 265-3417.