Notable New Champs

• Sweetgum was absent from the 2006 register and there was fierce competition to find a new champ. 10 states nominated trees, but a 384-point specimen from South Carolina beat out all the others to claim the title.
• Three new species will be represented in the Register for the first time ever; Bigleaf Snowbell (co-champs in NC), Littleleaf Sumac (AZ) and Geyer Willow (AZ).
• The throne for the Ohio Buckeye has moved from Ohio to Illinois after a 266-point tree was nominated from Illinois. The new Ohio Buckeye champ stands at Hamburger University, McDonald’s Corporate Headquarters.

Fallen Champions

• 856-point Klootchy Creek Sitka Spruce of Oregon was toppled by high winds in 2007
• 563-point Eastern Cottonwood of Nebraska came down in a storm during the summer of 2007.
• Louisiana’s Seven Sisters Live Oak was dethroned after a former Georgia co-champion was re-measured and gained more than five points on the Seven Sisters Oak, making the Georgia tree the stand alone champion.
• Rhode Island lost its only champion due to the 10-year rule.
• 340-point Northern White Cedar of Leelanau County, MI was found dead. The tree had reigned since 1953.

Visit Our Champions

• General Sherman: Located in Sequoia National Park in California the champion Giant Sequoia is the world's biggest tree and largest living thing.
• Common Jujube: This champion is located on the grounds of the Capitol in Washington, DC. It is the capital city's first true national champion.
• Hawthorns: Two national champion hawthorns grace the grounds of Morton Arboretum 25 miles west of Chicago, Illinois.
• American chestnut: A champion chestnut graces the pages of the register with 376 points in Clarkston, WA

Remaining (original) Champions from the class of 1940

• Giant sequoia ("General Sherman") Sequoia National Park, CA
• Rocky Mountain juniper ("Jardine Juniper") Cache National Forest, UT
• Western juniper ("Bennett Juniper") Stanislaus National Forest, CA

Big Tree Controversy

Texas vs. New Mexico
Rio Grande Cottonwoods

Since 1971, a Rio Grande cottonwood tree in Fort Davis, Texas, has been listed on the American Forests' National Register of Big Trees as the biggest. That Texas tree, most recently measured in 2001, has a trunk 30.6 feet around, stands 92 feet high, and has an average crown spread of 92 feet - statistics that earn it a Big Tree point score of 489.

But in June, 2003, Matt Schmader and Bonnie Dils of Albuquerque Open Space, Jeff Hart of Albuquerque Park Management, and Suzanne Probart, executive director of Tree New Mexico, measured a big Rio Grande cottonwood growing on a ditch bank just a stone's throw from the Rio Grande Boulevard overpass. Their measurements made the tree a contender.

However, a posse of disheartened Texans insisted on field verification and Oscar Mestas, an El Paso-based regional urban forester for the Texas Forest Service conducted his own measurements of the Albuquerque tree. Mestas measured and remeasured and remeasured again. His results, reluctantly agreed to by all observers, were that the Albuquerque ditch bank tree has a trunk circumference of 32.4 feet, its height is 64 feet, and its average crown spread is 88 feet. Total Big Tree points: 475, or 19 points less than the Texas tree's. (If it had come within 5 points, the Albuquerque tree would have been officially designated "co-champion" with the Texas tree.)