Engelmann oak to be cloned as part of tree-saving project

July 28, 2001

By Andrew Bridges
Associated Press

PASADENA -- The Engelmann oak has grown for hundreds of years, reaching the height of a seven-story building as the city has sprouted up around it.

"When you stand here, you really realize how big it is," said Jacqueline Reaume as she gazed at the ancient giant, its 100-foot-wide canopy shading the front yard of her 1920s-era home.

To the tree enthusiast, the native California oak is more than just big; it's a superlative, a "national champion" that dwarfs all others of its species.

"This is the largest and oldest organism of its type on this planet," said urban forester Terry Mock, who recently traveled from his home in Florida to measure the oak's nearly 12-foot-diameter trunk, photograph it and take cuttings from its drooping branches.

Each foot-length cutting would later be spirited to a San Juan Capistrano nursery and propagated. It's all part of an effort to clone the tallest examples of more than 800 indigenous species of American trees, perpetuating what members of the Champion Tree Project presume are superior genes. The Engelmann is one of those species.

"We've decimated our virgin forests to the point (where) there are so few of these giants left, they're practically extinct," Mock, the group's executive director, said as he snipped at the oak. "We want to preserve the genetics of this tree."

Workers with the 5-year-old nationwide project hope to have cuttings from 100 species by summer's end, including trees planted by George Washington at Mount Vernon.

The national champion trees are selected on the basis of a point system that considers height, trunk circumference and the spread of the outermost branches.

Rather than grow offspring from seeds, the group's members use the cuttings to create exact clones that can be used to restore the nation's old-growth forests.

For now, the project is establishing living libraries, scattered around the country, where the trees can grow to maturity. The effort is underwritten in part by the nonprofit National Tree Trust.

"These trees don't have to die; they can live on forever," said David Milarch, a Michigan tree farmer who began the group with his son, Jared.

The idea is that champion trees are the hardiest examples of their species, as they have survived everything nature and humans have thrown at them over the centuries.

"They've passed the toughest test, which is the test of time," Milarch said.

Less than 3 percent of the nation's native old-growth forest still stands, the rest felled over the past 500 years.

One tree expert said the effort does well to capitalize on the trees' historic value in generating interest in the project.

But the project would do better by planting offspring -- not merely clones -- of multiple examples of each of the species to preserve their genetic diversity, said Donald R. Hodel, a horticulturist with the University of California cooperative extension in Los Angeles.

However, Milarch said clones of the hardiest examples of the trees that remain should have the best odds in what he hopes will become an effort to beef up the nation's stock of indigenous trees, especially in urban areas, where trees seldom live more than a decade on average.

One plant biologist said there is no guarantee a cloned copy will do as well as the original mature tree, since nurture -- water, light, availability of nutrients and the absence of pests -- is as important as nature.

"It's always a combination, not only for people, but for plants: you'll always do better under optimal conditions no matter what your genes are," said Jim Bauml, a senior biologist at The Arboretum of Los Angeles County.

Mock said the effort is as much science as it is marketing: Eventually, they hope to license the clones to nurseries for sale to cities, schools and homeowners.

"We're out to create a national brand name of trees," Mock said.