EAST LANSING, Mich. — A massive white oak tree that fell in a summer thunderstorm stood tall for close to 200 years before what is now Michigan State University began growing up around it.
The toppled tree is likely 350 to 400 years old. Every person to ever visit campus could have walked by the massive tree, said Frank Telewski, a plant biology professor at Michigan State University.
“It’s amazing when you think about it,” he said. It could have first sprouted before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620.
A small portion of the centuries-old tree remains between the Michigan State University Museum and Linton Hall in the West Circle area of campus. It previously shaded a stone water fountain dedicated by the class of 1900, which served both humans and the horses they rode to campus. Before that, Native American tribes occupied the land around what is now West Circle, Telewski said.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources doesn't have a list of oldest trees in the state, but a stand of old-growth cedars on South Manitou Island within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is estimated to have some within it that are 500 years old, Kevin Sayers of the department's Forest Resources Division said last year.
A bristlecone pine dubbed Patriarch in the White Mountains of Inyo County, Calif., is thought to be the oldest tree in the USA, according to National Geographic magazine. Its age is estimated at more than 5,000 years old, and it may be the second oldest tree in the world behind one in Sweden whose root system has been growing for 9,550 years.
Michigan State grounds staff harvested the majority of white oak tree shortly after the July 8 storm that downed it.
Much of the center of the tree was rotted out when it fell over, Telewski said. He attributed the damage to workers who prepared the land in the 1850s for what started as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan.
Those workers cut the tops of existing trees and placed metal caps on them, which Telewski said he noticed upon inspecting the toppled tree.
Telewski had to go 15 feet up from the base of the tree to find a complete section in order to count the tree rings. Counting 347 rings, Telewski said the tree is significantly older because it likely spent its first few decades fighting for sunlight in the surrounding forest.
Groundskeepers cleared many of those trees to set up the college, but this tree likely was saved because it was spindly, Telewski said.
Officials haven’t decided what to do with the tree’s remains, said Dan Brown, a coordinator in the university's Department of Forestry. The massive trunk was cut into sections, which were placed in a lot behind the T.B. Simon Power Plant.
They likely will be turned over to the Michigan State University's Shadows program, which turns upended campus trees into wood products such as cutting boards and furniture. Half of the proceeds from the program go toward replanting trees across campus.
But donating the wood to the Shadows program isn't expected to happen until spring, Brown said.
"The main bulk of the tree was recovered," Brown said. "Some limbs were also recovered that we hope to turn into (drink) coasters."
Contributing: Kathleen Lavey, Lansing State Journal. Follow RJ Wolcott on Twitter @wolcottr
