Learning about the Trees of Garden City--Essay One

When I was invited by Mr. Alan Geier, a longtime employee of the Garden City (KS) parks department, to accompany him on a "tree-trip" through the Finnup Park in Garden City last week, I frankly wasn't expecting too much. I figured there would be an assortment of scraggly pines, hackberries, siberian elms and a few other trees native to the plains, and that would be that. But I not only learned in my all-too-brief three hour tour that my pre-conception was wrong, but also that the trees of Finnup Park are various, engaging and, in more than one instance, stunning. This and the next essay speak of that tour, which I took with Mr. Geier and a few Garden City friends, Katherine and Caverly. First, a word of historical context and then, to the trees.

Trees and Garden City

When European settlers first entered the short-grass prairie around today's Garden City in the 1870s, there were few if any trees in sight. Those that survived the frequent wind-battering were largely consumed or destroyed by bison herds. But in 1905, thanks to the foresight of those in the Progressive Era "national forest movement," the Kansas National Forest project began. One might think at first that this was some kind of joke, sort of like year-round sunbathing being advertised in Greenland, but the project began in earnest as a 30,000 acre public reservation called the Garden City Forest Reserve. The goal was to provide a place for experimental tree planting on the high plains to determine which species of trees were most suitable for propagation in the region. Thus, over the next decade or so more than 270,000 additional acres were added to the reservation, and, on a section of about 1,000 acres of this property was planted with 800,000 seedlings. Only a few trees from that experiement, considered a failure, survive to this day. I suppose as a result of this experiment people could just have decided that trees wouldn't grow in SW Kansas.

But this was not to be the philosophy of the City of Garden City or certain forward thinking people in that town. Indeed, these folk were committed to making Garden City live up to its name, and the Finnup Park, named after three generations of philanthropists in the city, was one of the results of this effort. When I visited the park with Alan, Katherine and Caverly last week, I was the grateful recipient of decades of labor of those who believe that Garden City could indeed become the garden spot of the plains.

Introducing the Three Champion Trees

Each state has a champion tree program, where the largest tree of a particular species found in that state is measured and recorded. Of course there is a science to this, and the "winning" tree is based on the combination of circumference measurement 4 1/2 feet from the ground, height and crown spread (a detailed explanation is here). The KS list, consisting of about 160 species of trees, is accessible from the previous link. Until 2007, the Finnup park had only one champion tree, a Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia). This, indeed, would be expected, since almost all the champion trees are in counties in Eastern KS, where the climate and terrain are hospitable to growth. Yet during 2007 Mr. Geier thought he spotted a few more and, after the visit of Mr. James Strine, the District Forester from KSU, Mr. Geier's suspicions were confirmed. Finnup Park now also has the champion Pinyon Pine (Pinus edulis) and Southwestern White Pine (Pinus strobiformis).

The champion Chinese Elm, also known as the lacebark elm, is most impressive. Situated behind the Finnup Center for Conservation Education on a lawn surrounded by other deciduous trees that seem almost to defer to this elm by being a respectful distance from it, the elm immediately catches your attention because of its unexpectedly broad spread. One online description of the species seemed to fit the Finnup Park elm: "It has a dense, broad, rounded crown of spreading branches; showy, exfoliating bark and small, dark glossy green leaves that are slightly saw-toothed." In the bark of this tree is a deep gash from where a branch was excised long ago. When asked about the size and impressive dimensions of the tree, Mr. Geier hypothesized that a "monkey pool," located not far from the elm for many years in the past, may have had the unintended effect of adding additional fertilizer to the tree. Indeed, this would do it, since its "favorite habitat is a most, loose, fertile, loamy soil with either acid or alkaline pH and full sunlight..." Fits it perfectly. I could understand how a whole gaggle of botanists might want to settle under the spreading branches of this impressive tree to muse about their dendrological lives...

To the Tour

But we were just getting started. And I couldn't get too far along before we stopped and talked about a paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) standing across the street from the entrance to the Finnup Center. Strinking about the paper mulberry is the variable shape of the leaves: some of them are ovate and some are three-lobed. The rough texture of the leaves and the bark of the tree, used for paper, also catch your attention. I learned that this kind of tree was popular in America during the early part of the 20th century. Indeed, silkworms inhabit the tree, and without the paper mulberry there would be little silk production. Silk was the fabric of choice among more wealthy people 100 years ago, but with the proliferation of cheaper and durable synthetic fibers in the second decade of the 20th century, the demand for silk diminished. Just as the quest for beaver fur declined in the mid-19th century after that style of hat went out of fashion, so the silk produced by silkworms in the paper mulberry wasn't in demand anymore. Yet a few of these trees still grow in the Finnup park, mute testimony to an earlier age, but still striking in ours.

Actually, I am not fully finished with my comments on silk; so let's go to the next essay to "finish" my tour.

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