A story of gaps in the understory

Philadelphia has a whole host of missing trees and none are more famous than the Great Elm of Shackamaxon. Jon Spruce journeys to the hereafter and back…

At the time of its toppling, it was 283 years old, eight feet in diameter and twenty-four feet in circumference.

Its final height is in dispute but, if it was still alive, and even if it hadn’t grown an inch since 1810, it would stand above us all, today, as the reigning champion elm tree of Philadelphia.

Its place is commemorated with a statue of brother William Penn himself, right off Delaware Avenue, in Penn Treaty Park.

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