University arborist Tom Bythell shares his favorite stories about some of Carolina’s thousands of trees.
Story by Kristen Grant, University Communications
We seek refuge from the hot sun underneath them, stop and take photos when they change colors in fall and marvel at their height. There are tens of thousands of trees on Carolina’s campus, and as University arborist Tom Bythell will tell you, they each have a story. Here are a few about some of trees on campus that connect Tar Heels past, present and future.
The trees that students valued most in Carolina’s early years were different from those students value today.
Carolina’s first students often foraged for food. “Certain trees had more value back then,” said Bythell. Students cut down other trees to help pecan trees grow. “Persimmon trees were revered because their fruit had sugar, which means they could ferment it.” When Bythell arrived in Chapel Hill nearly 30 years ago, the persimmon trees were gone, so he planted one in a spot near Manning Hall to replace one that had once grown there.
There is one horse chestnut tree on campus.
While people can’t eat horse chestnuts, deer and squirrels love them. In the 1800s, students wanted to keep those trees to attract game they could hunt for food. “When we cut trees, we find gunshot bullets from where they were shooting at squirrels. The horse chestnut trees were important to the students back then, and I planted one on McCorkle Place as a homage since all the trees were gone by the 1980s.”
The ginkgo trees between the Kenan Music Building and Hanes Art Center were planted to mimic a yellow brick road in the fall.
“I still love that every fall, two out of three people who walk by stop and take a picture,” said Bythell. “The trees are just such a gorgeous color. I beg our grounds crew, ‘Please let those leaves stay on the ground just a little longer!’”
There’s only one female ginkgo tree on campus, for a good reason.
“The fruit of the female ginkgo tree is so pungent that it’s actually prohibited to plant them in some towns,” said Bythell.
The white oak “hugging” the Old Well isn’t doing so by accident.
“I’ve been training that tree for years so that the limbs grow to almost hug the top of the Old Well,” said Bythell. “I say that’s the most photographed tree on campus because of what it’s next to.”
Bythell doesn’t play favorites, but one tree he especially loves is the 60-foot-tall catawba tree on South Road.
“It is absolutely, positively magnificent,” Bythell said. “When the tree flowers, the flowerets are in groups and they’re like little orchids. There’s about 30 of them in one mass.” Other catawba trees generally don’t grow as straight and tall as the one by Kenan and Caudill labs. “You can’t miss it.”
The overcup oaks lining East Cameron Avenue are all genetically identical cuttings from the same tree.
“In about 10 to 15 years, as you turn on East Cameron Avenue from the Carolina Inn, you’re going to be driving underneath a canopy,” Bythell said. “I selected an overcup oak there because it grows as wide as it does tall, about 50 feet, so that the canopy effect will happen quicker. I’ve joked that the first time two limbs from either side of the street touch, then I’ll retire.”
Of course, no list about campus trees would be complete without a note on the Davie Poplar.
Contrary to what you might have heard, the tulip poplar tree on McCorkle Place is not filled with cement — it’s hollow inside. Last spring, the grounds team was able to put a small camera inside its trunk and discovered a flock of chimney swifts living within one of Carolina’s most famous landmarks.
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