“Trees” to Meet You: Elmhurst University Is an Arboretum

As new and returning students fill Elmhurst University’s campus this fall, many faces will greet them: faculty, staff, and peers. So will the trees.

EU is home to almost 900 trees across its 48 acres. It earned Level II Accreditation from the Morton Register of Arboreta and includes both a “living fossil” and a one-of-a-kind tree among its more than 160 species.

The campus became an arboretum in 1966, when local landscape architect Herbert Licht convinced the then-college leadership to introduce more plant diversity, according to EU’s website. Many of Elmhurst’s elm trees were dying of Dutch elm disease, and plant diversity can act as a barrier to block spreading infectious spores from healthy trees.

So, working together with EU’s first groundskeeper, Ragnar Moen, the two planted a Shumard oak just south of the Frick Center. Hauled back from Michigan by Moen, it marked the beginning of the arboretum.

The grounds team of four full-time employees and student workers is in charge of maintaining the campus and keeping the arboretum healthy. ArborScope is a computer software program that helps the grounds team keep track of the different species around campus and which trees are dedicated to whom.

Students are greeted by maples, magnolias, redbuds, and American elms. There are also some notable standouts that have become favorites among the community.

Just outside the Schaible Science Center stands a tall dawn redwood. The species, dubbed a “living fossil,” thrived across the Northern Hemisphere during the Mesozoic Era when dinosaurs roamed. While initially discovered and named from stone fossils, scientists rediscovered the tree in the 1940s.

The redwood is often found in parks and botanic gardens because of its rapid growth rate of 2 to 6 feet per year and its strong, symmetrical cone-shaped silhouette. Its flared, plank-like trunk; scattered, outreaching branches; and feathery foliage make it a staple of the campus arboretum.

Near the Founders Lounge is another peculiar tree. The Elmhurst Yew, the only known tree of its kind, was first singled out by Moen about 50 years ago. The tree doesn’t resemble any other Yews on campus or anywhere else. When no one could match it to a known species, it was dubbed “Taxus elmhurstii,” and it continues to grow alone. It stands at only about a meter tall with prickly clumps of leaves lining its skinny branches. Students and faculty at EU are currently cloning the tree to hopefully create more.

A dawn redwood stands tall on the campus of Elmhurst University outside the Schaible Science Center. || PHOTO BY Star Herring