A Brief History of the Michigan Big Tree Register

(Compiled by Ted Reuschel, January, 2021)

In 1875, “in response to rapid and wasteful postwar development and intense wildfires,” concerned citizens founded the American Forestry Association, later to become the American Forests organization. Following many decades of conservation pursuits, the “National Registry of Big Trees” program was established in 1940, “to document the largest living tree of each species in the U. S.”  Michigan was among the first states to follow their lead and begin searching for state champions.

Each state now has an organization or agency which maintains the official database of that state’s biggest trees. In Michigan, that organization is the Michigan Botanical Club (MBC). Organized in 1941, the Club initiated their Big Tree Program soon afterward.  Paul Thompson, affiliated with the Cranbrook Institute of Sciences, became the program’s first State Big Tree Coordinator, and the accumulation of an official record of the biggest trees of each species was begun. Early records were of course maintained manually and printed by typewriter.

American Forests has been publishing their “National Registry of Big Trees” since the 1940’s, with the initial support of the Davey Tree Expert Company, and on an ongoing basis with the State Coordinators. These standings were eventually published every two years. At one time, Michigan had 53 national champion trees on this list.

Paul Thompson served as Michigan’s State Coordinator for over 40 years until his death in 1994. At that time the position was transferred to Elwood B. Ehrle, who served as Professor of Biological Sciences at Western Michigan University (WMU). Program efforts and records were centered here for a number of subsequent years.

During the early decades of the program, the list of trees on the Michigan register grew dramatically, at one point reaching over 1100 active specimens. Contributing to this growth were the concerted efforts being made by several tree specialists with access to a great variety of species in a concentrated setting. Notable among them were Robert Bloye [GEC1] at Michigan State University, Stu Bassett at the Kellogg Biological Station, and Jeff Boddy at Leila Arboretum.

Elwood (Woody) Ehrle continued to oversee the program from WMU until about 2008. He was succeeded as State Coordinator by Andrew Sawyer, who served through the year 2017.

Apparently, at some time during those final years of input from Woody Ehrle, the Michigan Botanical Club assumed responsibility [GEC2] for the official records. MBC developed and operated a computerized register [GEC3] to track the ever-growing and ever-changing list of entries. Its 2012 version was titled the “Michigan Big Tree Register Species List.” Not long afterward, however, the computer program of the MBC became inoperative and could not be restored. This was a serious problem, and a variety of options for outside assistance were considered. With no success, finally in 2018 the webmaster of the MBC, Sheila Bourgoin, was able to capture an earlier record of some 800 trees, and transform it into a new computer program, which remains in effect.

At about this time Andrew Sawyer retired from his position as State Coordinator and was replaced by Ted Reuschel, a retired forester from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. About 150 new trees which had accumulated during the period while the MBC program was inoperative had been manually maintained by Mr. Reuschel, and were then added to the new register.

Mr. Reuschel then began a review of the various records of big trees to assure that all past records were accounted for in our new MBC register, and were also up-to-date. The new register, constructed from available data in 2018, was compared with that recorded in the prior MBC program. Additionally, MBC member Jim Charvat was able to obtain a printed copy of the 1999 record kept by WMU. This was also compared. In both cases, discrepancies and missing trees were evaluated, and to the extent reasonable, brought into agreement, updated, or dismissed from consideration for various reasons.

As suggested by the early titles of the listings, which included the terms “inventory” and “shrubs,” these lists grew to include a very large number of trees and shrubs The result was now a record of some 1500 trees! It was found that these records included a vast variety of tree species, including non-natives, hybrids and varieties, small shrubs, and many which were very difficult to identify by anyone but an expert botanist. Frequently, there was only one representative of the species on the entire register. It also included many species which would never reach typical tree size or form. And per national and state standards, each of these would also  require a 10-year re-measurement in order to remain active. At the same time, field re-visits and data updates for previously-registered trees were relatively rare, so that a huge inventory of outdated information was accumulating.

This represented an enormous job for the state coordinator and the field certifiers.  Consequently, the MBC agreed to pare down the list of trees which Michigan would track . This was done in 2019. Over time, therefore, the focus of the program has shifted from a broad and open scientific inventory of large specimens to a publicly-appealing register of just Michigan’s biggest trees.

Currently some 40 authorized volunteer certifiers are working statewide to keep this more limited and focused Michigan Register up-to-date, and to assure that new trees are carefully reviewed in a timely manner.  Efforts to keep the Michigan Big Tree Register easy to access and use by both certifiers and the general public are ongoing.