FOREST’S FINEST

Toronto is home to 10.2 million trees, from pin-straight saplings to middleage maples, looming backyard oaks to lushly wooded parklands.

Many of the city’s biggest and tallest trees live incognito in the ribbons of forest that surround Toronto’s network of rivers and ravines.

Eric Davies, an ecologist pursuing a PhD at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry, has been hunting these giants, all native tree species that grow here naturally. He believes many are remnants of the area’s original wooded landscape.

When he finds a standout tree, Davies maps its location and records its dimensions, including its height, the size of its canopy and the diameter of its trunk. Without taking a core from the tree’s trunk — a delicate and time-consuming task he plans to undertake for the second phase of his ongoing project — Davies can’t say for sure each tree’s age. However, he is confident some of the 905 trees in his data set are upwards of 200 years old, and a few even older.

By mapping these significant ravine trees, Davies is creating a permanent record of Toronto’s ecological past. He also sees them as a critical source of seeds that will produce trees just as healthy and hardy as their parents, which have proven their ability to withstand ice storms, droughts, disease and the pressures from an increasingly urbanized environment.

Davies, who has shared his data set exclusively with the Star, believes planting these hyperlocal trees is the best way to grow and preserve our urban forest.

Here are five of his favourite trees growing in Toronto’s ravines, each impressive in its own way.