Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Winds take down 200-year-old tree
The 86-foot-high yellow cucumber magnolia barely missed the Pierre DuPont house.
EAST MARLBOROUGH » A tree that stood on the grounds at Longwood Gardens for more than 200 years was felled during a recent windstorm.
Katie Mobley, a senior marketing specialist at Longwood Gardens, said the felled cucumber magnolia towered 86 feet high, and its origins can be traced to French explorer Andre Michaux in 1788, who discovered yellow cucumber magnolias.
Arborist Manager Tyler Altenburger counted about 120 growth rings and at 30 feet about 160 growth rings on the tree.
Michaux discovered this species in South Carolina, and it’s from this man that the Peirce brothers procured this specific tree, most likely with the help of John Bartram or William Hamilton, owners of two prominent Philadelphia gardens. The Peirce family planted this tree between 1798 and 1830. The 1853 edition of the American Handbook of Ornamental Trees noted the “very fine” specimen as having a girth of four feet, much smaller than its 13-foot girth at the time it fell.
The huge yellow cucumber magnolia was planted 8 feet from its neighboring Gingko biloba, with both species introduced into cultivation in America and distributed at about the same time. The yellow cucumber magnolia and the gingko are likely of similar age and from the same source. William Hamilton is also credited with introducing gingko into the United States.
Twelve years ago, Longwood Gardens staff propagated the yellow cucumber magnolia and as a result have planted three propagules of the fallen champion in Peirce’s Park, near the Sylvan Fountain, and at the edge of the Orchard at Longwood.
After the loss of the state champion tree, three younger yellow cucumber magnolias planted throughout the gardens will now serve as an even greater tribute to their parent tree. One of the ongoing goals of the Specimen Tree Replacement Plan is to distribute germplasm with other public gardens and horticultural organizations in the event of a destructive event, such as the wind that downed the tree.