{"id":2899,"date":"2017-01-10T20:28:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T20:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=2899"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:27:22","slug":"wabash-college-arboretum-our-stately-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2017\/01\/10\/wabash-college-arboretum-our-stately-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Wabash College Arboretum: Our Stately Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/a>
Tim Riley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tim Riley \u2014<\/em> On a warm spring day in 2016 during Earth Week, Tim Riley hosted an arboretum walk with a\u00a0small group of interested faculty and students. The agenda was to discuss the past, present and the\u00a0future of Indiana\u2019s trees and the part Wabash College Arboretum plays in that future.<\/p>\n

An early activity on the tour had the group holding a rope in a circle fifty seven feet in\u00a0circumference, roughly eighteen feet in diameter which is the size of most above ground pools. This\u00a0represented the trunk size of the largest tree ever recorded in Indiana, an American Sycamore\u00a0(Plantanus occidentalis), located near Kokomo. However, at the time of this discovery, the grand old\u00a0tree had fallen to the ravages of nature and a gnarled and ancient stump greeted the lands new\u00a0inhabitants and explorers. It is considered the world\u2019s largest Sycamore stump measuring twelve feet\u00a0high and eighteen feet in diameter. In 1916, the stump was relocated to the Kokomo City Park for\u00a0preservation. It is still there today along with other attractions like the world\u2019s largest steer exhibit, if\u00a0that is your type of thing. Trees are the silent sentinels who endure generations and are at the very\u00a0heart of what gives Wabash College and the state of Indiana some of the most beautiful landscapes in\u00a0the country.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>
Earth Week Arboretum walk and demonstration<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wabash College Arboretum has a diverse and near complete collection of Indiana native tree\u00a0species. There are a few that are not represented on campus but most are unable to grow in our\u00a0climate and do not reflect the state\u2019s general population of trees. We also have many other species\u00a0that are not native to Indiana but still very valuable assets to the campus. The Arboretum consists of\u00a0close to ten acres of slightly rolling terrain, covered with shade and proud strong trees bordering the\u00a0East and Northeast side of campus. Oak, Maple, Beech, Tulip and Ash are the most abundant species\u00a0of trees. The book, \u201c50 trees of Indiana\u201d written by T.E. Shaw, has been the long time standard for\u00a0the planting of the Wabash Arboretum. Of the 50 trees selected by Shaw, we have over 80%\u00a0represented on campus. We are always striving to have representatives of every tree species that is\u00a0native to our state and plant around twenty new trees each year.<\/p>\n

The future of Wabash\u2019s arboretum is exciting and worrisome. Since 2010 there has been\u00a0several years of weather extremes. Not always damaging storms take out our gentle giants, but\u00a0excessive periods of heat, drought, and rainfall have brought an end to many of our most historic\u00a0trees. These environmental extremes add stress that has led to secondary pressures of pest and\u00a0disease. Many of the older trees are suffering or have succumbed to these secondary pressures. The\u00a0Emerald Ash Bore is now widespread in Montgomery County. Preventive treatments are ongoing,\u00a0with hopes to save a small population for future study. Unfortunately, Ash trees ( Fraxinus) will be the\u00a0next great tree species to be all but eliminated in our State and on our campus. But cases like that of\u00a0the Ash tree spur on new hybrids and species tolerant to its predecessors killers. Trees like the\u00a0American Chestnut and American Elm once were plentiful but now are few in number throughout the\u00a0state. But we now have new hybrid species being introduced with a strong resistance to the pests and\u00a0disease that once took them out. Each year brings a new set of challenges, but we are committed to\u00a0preserving our campus trees and doing all we can to ensure Wabash will Always be a place where\u00a0trees Flourish and shade the next generations of Wabash Men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Riley \u2014 On a warm spring day in 2016 during Earth Week, Tim Riley hosted an arboretum walk with a\u00a0small group of interested faculty and students. The agenda was to discuss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/01\/0B8A6434-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3778,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/3778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}