Champion poplar tree split in two
Nebraska.statepaper.com is reporting that America's largest cottonwood tree has fallen, split in half by either lightning or wind in a storm. According to the article, the tree was 36.75 feet in circumference, 85 feet high and 107 feet in crown spread. It grew near Seward, Nebraska.
The photograph that accompanies the article shows two massive trunks on the tree. The man in the picture is tiny in comparison to the tree.
I wrote recently about the big cottonwood (Populus deltoides) trees on my Nebraska country school playground, half a century ago. I remember one with particular affection because several children could hide together behind it in "Hide and Seek."
This fallen champion cottonwood was so big that our entire schoolhouse could have been hidden behind it! Actually, I am not joking. Our little schoolhouse was only 10 or 12 feet wide.
Related site: Nebraska Champion Tree Register
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"The power to recognize trees at a glance without examining their leaves or flowers or fruit as they are seen, for example, from the car-window during a railroad journey, can only be acquired by studying them as they grow under all possible conditions over wide areas of territory. Such an attainment may not have much practical value, but once acquired it gives to the possessor a good deal of pleasure which is denied to less fortunate travelers."
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