Pendleton tree hacks its way to the top

Published 5:08 pm Monday, October 31, 2016

This hackberry tree, shown here in Olney Cemetery in its summer leaves, is the state's largest.

Pendleton’s latest state champion wasn’t crowned at the high school or the Round-Up Arena, but within the grassy confines of Olney Cemetery.

At 78 feet and 175 inches in circumference, a common hackberry tree at Olney was recently recorded as the largest of its kind in the state.

Parks and Recreation Director Donnie Cook said the idea to submit the hackberry to a big tree registry came from Dave Powell, the chairman of the city’s tree commission and retired forester with the U.S. Forest Service.

The registry is maintained by American Forests, a nonprofit dedicated to forest preservation.

Cook and Powell measured the tree according to American Forests’ specifications, adding together the height, circumference and the average amount the tree’s branches extend away from the base.

The Pendleton common hackberry tree’s 271-point score wasn’t enough to surpass the largest recorded hackberry in Findlay, Ohio, but it scored well enough to be crowned state champion.

Pendleton’s hackberry was aided by the fact that its species aren’t native to the region.

According to the forest service, the common hackberry tree — Celtis occidentalis — is mostly found in the eastern United States, extending from New England to the east to the Dakotas in the west.

While the typical hackberry tree grows to about 50 feet, they can grow as high as 110 feet under the right conditions.

The hackberry’s wood is soft and can be used for inexpensive furniture or crates, and its fruit is mostly eaten by birds.

Although Cook is uncertain how old the tree is without chopping it down, hackberrys typically live between 150 and 200 years.

Cook said his long-term vision for the hackberry tree is to see it surrounded with donated trees to form an arboretum, with signs recognizing the hackberry tree as the largest in the state.

Cook said an arboretum could be a local attraction that would attract people from off nearby Interstate 84.

Pendleton doesn’t have a monopoly on large hackberry trees in Eastern Oregon.

Wallowa County is home to the largest recorded netleaf hackberry in the country, a different species than the one in Pendleton.

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Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0836.

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