Champion Trees touted for Arbor Day

Randall Weiseman General

BRONSON TOUTS CHAMPION TREE PROGRAM AS NATIONAL ARBOR DAY APPROACHES

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner
Charles H. Bronson is asking the public for its help in identifying
“Champion Trees,” the largest known examples of individual species in
Florida.

For decades, Bronson’s Division of Forestry has participated in certifying
champion tree records and maintains a list of more than 300 trees. But with
National Arbor Day (the last Friday in April), a day set aside each year to
promote the benefit of trees, just around the corner, he wants Floridians to
help in identifying champion trees.

“What better way of thinking about the benefit of trees than for commercial
land owners, homeowners and those hiking in the woods to see if they can
identify large specimen trees that we’ve missed,” Bronson said. “Champions
are all around us just waiting to be discovered, even in people’s yards and
neighborhoods.”

Procedures used by the Florida Division of Forestry for measuring and
scoring champion trees are the same standards used by American Forests,
whose procedures can be viewed on that organization’s website at
http://www.americanforests.org.

Some of the largest concentrations of champion trees in Florida occur on
public lands managed by various state and federal agencies, including
Wakulla Springs State Park near Tallahassee and the various National
Wildlife Refuges in the Florida Keys.

In fact, a new national champion pyramid magnolia was just discovered this
month on Lake Talquin State Forest near Quincy.

Nevertheless, Bronson believes that there are many potential winners just
waiting to be discovered all around us.

The Division of Forestry’s website http://www.fl-dof.com will soon have a
champion tree page where the public can find Florida’s largest specimen of
any tree species. In the meantime, residents can contact Charlie Marcus at
(850) 921-0300 or their local county forester for more information about the
program or to nominate a tree as a Champion Tree.

If participating in the Champion Tree program is not an option, there are a
number of other ways to celebrate National Arbor Day, which falls on April
24 this year. Many local communities conduct celebrations in schools,
churches, youth groups, adult organizations and local governments.

And they will all be celebrating trees, something that most people take for
granted.

“Trees absorb carbon dioxide and other air pollutants at the same time that
they produce oxygen,” Bronson said. “They reduce storm water runoff and
soil erosion, provide habitat for wildlife, reduce heating and cooling
costs, produce more than 5,000 products that Florida residents use in their
daily lives and make communities more desirable places in which to live.”