University’s champion tree may get more room to get bigger

A state champion tree at a Louisiana university campus may get a bit more room to grow even larger.

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette is considering moving a greenhouse to make room for the big Montezuma cypress. Workers have already torn out four concrete parking spaces, and university officials are working on plans to create a deck with seating around the big tree.

Montezuma cypress are native to Mexico and Guatemala, and also found in south Texas and south New Mexico, but they don't appear in Louisiana unless they're brought from elsewhere. Nobody's really sure how this one came to be planted at the Lafayette campus. It's now 60 feet (18 meters) tall and 16 feet (5 meters) around with branches spreading out 80 feet (24 meters) across.

The Louisiana Forestry Association declared it a champion tree—that is, the largest of its kind in the state—late last year.

"These trees are pretty incredible, and this is definitely one that's made its presence known," said Gretchen Lacombe Vanicor, director of the university's office of sustainability, said in a phone interview.

Both the tree and the greenhouse date from the 1950s, though nobody knows which came first, she said. The tree may have been planted by Ira S. Nelson, a professor from 1941 to 1965 who often traveled to Central and South America, said James Foret, an instructor at ULL's school of geosciences and a self-described "tree wacko."

It has lifted the building's foundation, damaging its plumbing in the process, Vanicor said. "The bricks are starting to crack and fall off. We now have foundation failure because of the tree that really can't be fixed," she said. "We're going to relocate it nearby—somewhere the greenhouse will not be damaged by the tree and the tree won't be damaged by the greenhouse."