World Champion Pin Oak Tree Succumbs To Oak Wilt Disease
1/17/2017
Wisconsin Public Radio

By Glen Moberg

One of the largest oak trees in the world has succumbed to oak wilt disease on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus.

The massive northern pin oak was 92 feet tall with an 80-foot-wide crown and a circumference of 4.4 feet, and had been growing since 1894. 


Northern pin oak tree. Photo courtesy of UW-Stevens Point

The tree was considered to be the world champion of its kind, until being surpassed in recent years by a tree in Michigan, said UW-Stevens Point Professor of Urban Forestry Richard Hauer.

"It was at one time considered to be the largest northern pin oak tree in the world, based on the diameter, and the crown spread and the tree height," Hauer said. "It's just one of these large, important trees that actually dates back almost to the start of the institution here in the late 1800s."  

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