Davie Poplar

The University of North Carolina stands where it does, campus legend says, because General William R. Davie fell asleep under this poplar in 1792 and decided the spot would do. That is a good story rather than a documented one, which is roughly the status of most things said about this tree. What can be measured: over 100 feet tall, over 16 feet around, and somewhere between 300 and 375 years old on the university's own estimate, which no ring count supports. Even at the low end of that band it is older than the university, and that is the only part of the legend that has to be true for the rest to be plausible. It stands on McCorkle Place, the oldest quad on campus, and UNC has spent a long time preparing for the day it goes. Davie Poplar Jr. was rooted from the original and grows a few steps away; Davie Poplar III came later. Both are separate trees, and the one people come for is the big one. Seeds from it were handed out to students in 2005, and the anniversary of that giveaway was still being written up in the campus paper twenty years later, which tells you how much weight a university can put on one tulip tree. The quad is open ground, free, crossed all day. In late October the crown turns clear yellow.