But are there more Big Grove survivors than we think?

Old trees are not necessarily huge trees (Pederson 2010). Given that the Champaign-Urbana area has hundreds of moderately large but not giant trees, there thus could be more Big Grove survivors than we generally think.

Here I will answer three questions:

  1. Can the location of a tree tell us whether it is a Big Grove survivor?
  2. Can tree age be used to tell us whether a tree is a Big Grove survivor?
  3. Can the growth history of a tree tell us whether a tree is a Big Grove survivor?

I answer these questions by combining written historical records with dendrochronology, the science of inferring the past from tree rings. Specifically, I apply this approach to three recently cut trees in the Crystal Lake Park area. If you are looking just for the answers to these questions and the age of the three trees, you can skip directly to the Conclusions .