By Casey Smith, Naturalist
One of the first dates my husband and I went on over 10 years ago was a trip to Johnson Woods, an old growth forest in Wayne County. We went in search of big trees. He has loved big trees for as long as he can remember, and has lots of pictures of unenthusiastic high school friends standing next to trees for scale. Marrying a naturalist was a good fit. Nowadays, our two sons and I trot out through fields and wade through rivers to see big trees with him. Our four-year-old points at every tree and calls it a swamp white oak. Hey, it’s a start.
Today, Ohio isn’t known for having big trees, but just 12,000 years ago, Ohio was covered in forests with a relatively open understory. Once European settlers came to Ohio, land was cleared for farms and homesteads. It’s hard for us to imagine what greeted early settlers when they first came to Ohio. Massive tall trees that were 15 feet around, and over 70 feet to the lowest limb. In just a couple hundred years, most of Ohio’s forests, and big trees, were gone. Luckily, a few tracts of old growth forest remain in Ohio, protecting some of the largest trees in the state. These include to name a few Johnson Woods in Wayne County, Dysart Woods in Belmont County and Camp Oty’Okwa in Hocking County. Other large trees can be found in cemeteries, near old homes, or on privately owned lands.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources keeps a record of all Ohio’s biggest known trees. You can find the Big Tree Program here. Each tree receives a score based on trunk circumference (how big around), crown spread and total height. Big is relative when it comes to trees. The largest Ohio buckeye in the state is 144 inches in circumference and 77 feet tall which is a monster for this species. That is dwarfed however by the largest American sycamore which measures 432 inches in circumference and 124 feet tall. Ohio is also home to 8 national champion trees including two species of oak and a black cherry .
Maybe it’s being in the presence of something so immense, or the fact that these big trees know things that aren’t written in history books that make us look up at these giants and just say wow. It’s reverence and awe and respect. And I hope just a little of that is rubbing off on my boys.
If you think you know of a tree bigger than what is listed by ODNR, you can nominate it using the ODNR form, or tell Big Trees Ohio, and they can check it out.
