The Champion Boxelder of Edgebrook

Boxelder is the tree nobody wants. It seeds itself into alleys and back lots, drops limbs, hosts the boxelder bugs that get into houses in autumn, and is generally written off as a weed that never lives long enough to get big. This one is the biggest known in Illinois. The state's Big Tree Register, run by University of Illinois Extension, ranks it champion of its species: just over nine feet around the trunk, 55 feet tall, a crown spreading 35 feet, and 172.3 points on the register's scoring formula, ahead of the runner up down in Shawnee National Forest at the far southern end of the state. It was measured and listed in 2026 with a dated photograph, so it is standing now. One honesty note, and it is the reason this entry is flagged: the register is the only source we could find on it. The Sun-Times feature on the state's big trees, the Extension's own announcement and the Forest Preserves champion list all fail to mention it, most likely because the title is very new. No Illinois register carries an age field either, so nobody has dated this tree and we are not going to guess at it. Visiting is a golf question. It stands on Edgebrook Golf Course, a public course run by the Forest Preserves of Cook County, which normally means a green fee to walk the fairways, and whether it can be seen from the perimeter is unconfirmed.