More than 20,000 trees are a part of Michigan State University’s arboretum. The campus institution is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
Alan Prather is the interim director of the Beal Botanical Garden and the campus arboretum.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with him outside the MSU Museum next to a tree known as the Resilient Oak to talk about this milestone.
Interview Highlights
On how people on campus use the Arboretum
One of the goals of the Campus Arboretum, of course, is education and research. And so, having a really diverse collection on campus is really critical to, I think, the mission of Michigan State University. So, we maintain the Campus Arboretum to showcase plant diversity, but also to provide that diversity to educators and researchers.
On why The Resilient Oak is iconic
This particular one was actually toppled by a windstorm in 2016. And all that remained after the windstorm was just basically a shard, one branch and a shard of the trunk. But instead of just cutting the entire tree down, the director of the campus arboretum then, Frank Telewski, worked with landscape services on campus to maintain that. Since it was a 400-year-old tree, it seemed like a part of the history of MSU that we didn't want to lose. And today, that's actually flourishing, surprisingly enough.
On ways to celebrate trees
I always like to point out that we'd just all be better people if we spent more time outside. And trees here in Michigan really make our natural environment is largely forest. So, I think just getting outside just grabbing hold of a tree and touching it or hugging it really grounds people in a way that that helps them. So, celebrate that get out there and enjoy the trees. I'd also point out that there's just a lot we can learn from trees. So, take your phone and make an iNaturalist observation of trees in Baker Woodlot, or there's a million things you can do to actually help trees including planting them.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: More than 20,000 trees are a part of Michigan State University’s arboretum. The campus institution is also celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
Alan Prather is the interim director of the campus arboretum, and he joins me outside the MSU Museum next to a tree known as the Resilient Oak to talk about this milestone. Thank you for being here.
Alan Prather: Thank you for having me, Sophia. I appreciate the opportunity to chat.
Saliby: Why was the campus arboretum established and then maintained all these years?
Prather: So, originally, W.J. Beal established the arboretum as both an educational tool and a research tool. He was particularly interested in forestry, as you probably know, being kind of a founder of forestry in the Great Lakes region.
And he kind of looked at it as an experiment, a way to restore Michigan's forests because he grew up at a time in Michigan when the entire state was being clear cut.
Saliby: Why did you choose for us to have this conversation near what's known as the Resilient Oak? And what makes it so resilient?
Prather: Well, when we think about all of the beautiful trees on campus, this massive expanse of landscape and how beautiful our campus is, it's really the trees that do that.
This particular tree is nowhere near the most beautiful, but it's probably the most iconic because of its history, and one that I think really sets up what we think of the goals of the arboretum, in a way, that is easy to translate.
Saliby: Can you talk about its story?
Prather: It's part of the trees in the historic Oval on campus encompassed by West Circle Drive. So, there are, as you probably know, a lot of really beautiful, very old trees in that part of campus. Some of them dating, we think to probably 400-years-old, well predating campus. They're really majestic.
This particular one was actually toppled by a windstorm in 2016. And all that remained after the windstorm was just basically a shard, one branch and a shard of the trunk. But instead of just cutting the entire tree down, the director of the campus arboretum then, Frank Telewski, worked with landscape services on campus to maintain that.
Since it was a 400-year-old tree, it seemed like a part of the history of MSU that we didn't want to lose. And today, that's actually flourishing, surprisingly enough, that one shard is growing, and the branches are growing. It's bigger than it was in 2016. So it does, it kind of symbolizes resilience on campus to a lot of people, including me, and I think that makes it very special.
Saliby: Can you talk about the breadth of the kinds of trees on campus? Because obviously, Beal may have started with Michigan native trees, but we're 150 years later, and there's quite a bit of trees that have been brought from research trips abroad and other special events.
Prather: One of the goals of the campus arboretum, of course, is education and research. And so, having a really diverse collection on campus is really critical to, I think, the mission of Michigan State University. So, we maintain the campus arboretum to showcase plant diversity, but also to provide that diversity to educators and researchers.
So, you mentioned, for instance, some of the trees that came back from research trips, those are really fantastic. We have trees on campus that are in cultivation, that probably are not cultivated elsewhere in North America because a lot of these trees have come from Asia or Europe.
We're trying to grow the collection to include every single native tree species from Michigan. We're not quite there, but we're really close.
But in addition to those, of course, we're trying to grow the collection to include every single native tree species from Michigan. We're not quite there, but we're really close. It's one of our goals.
We also try to have a diversity of plants from across North America, including ornamental plants, we don't want to exclude those, right? There are a lot of really beautiful ornamental plants that are great for, for instance, people in the department of horticulture to study. So, we just tried to showcase all of our trees.
As we're thinking about invasive species, we are removing some trees from the collection if they're really invasive. And we're also thinking then about how to make sure that our tree collection is sustainable moving forward. So, we are trying to grow the proportion of native trees here in Michigan.
Saliby: What are some other well-known trees on campus and where can people find them?
Prather: Some some of the trees that I like to tell stories about are here around the Oval. One really cool one I think is the gingko tree that is right next to Beaumont Tower. That actually is one of the early gingko trees growing in North America, is one of the first ones planted. We're happy to have it here on Michigan State University's campus, has a great story behind how it got here. So, you can read that actually on our website.
I would also say there's, for instance, a really great beech tree in the healing garden on campus by the department of radiology that actually was so big when they installed it, they had to bring in a crane to install it. I love stories like that.
I'm really fascinated by butternuts because butternuts are a formerly very common tree that are now under threat from an invasive pest, just like so many other trees, on campus and in North America. But we have a butternut tree in the garden, the Beal Botanical Garden. It is really beautiful tree, and it's a beautiful story about how we're kind of preserving biodiversity and sustainability in the garden.
We have a great collection of commemorative trees on campus, so people can make donations to have a tree planted in someone's honor. The very first of those is right by Cowles House, the big white pine in the front of Cowles House that everybody knows is the very first commemorative tree on campus. So, that one's pretty special.
Saliby: You mentioned the trees for the arboretum not just being nice to look at but being used for research on campus. Is there maybe one example you can think of a study that was done with some of these trees that we're looking at?
Prather: Oh, I can. My favorite example of that is Tammy Long in the department of plant biology. She's a person who studies the pedagogy, basically how to teach biology. So, she does it within the discipline. She has a great research project with her bioscience class where they study the phenology of the trees on campus.
They actually record the fall phenology, leaf change in a couple of hundred trees across campus, and then they compile those datasets over years to look at change. So, that's a really interesting example of research, but also one that involves undergraduates.
But one of the kinds of things I think about it that makes it cool is it's also a meta kind of project because her research is actually on how effective it is to use that research to engage students and to get them to learn about biology.
Saliby: We're talking on Arbor Day, so obviously we're celebrating trees but can you think of some ways people can celebrate trees throughout the year?
I think just getting outside just grabbing hold of a tree and touching it or hugging it really grounds people in a way that that helps them. So, celebrate that get out there and enjoy the trees.
Prather: There's a lot of ways people can celebrate trees. Firstly, I always like to point out that we'd just all be better people if we spent more time outside. And trees here in Michigan really make our natural environment is largely forest. So, I think just getting outside just grabbing hold of a tree and touching it or hugging it really grounds people in a way that that helps them. So, celebrate that get out there and enjoy the trees.
I'd also point out that there's just a lot we can learn from trees. So, take your phone and make an iNaturalist observation of trees in Baker Woodlot, or there's a million things you can do to actually help trees including planting them, of course, so I encourage everybody to plant a tree in their yard to this Arbor Day.
Saliby: Alan Prather there is the interim director of the MSU campus arboretum. Thank you for joining me.
Prather: Thank you so much for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
