The Champion Sugar Maple of Dam No. 1 Woods East

The biggest sugar maple on Cook County's forest preserve land is seven metres shorter than the one the county ranks second. The Forest Preserves of Cook County measured this champion on 4 December 2023: a trunk 3.53 metres round, 139 inches, on a tree 29.3 metres tall, 96 feet. Its crown is narrow and lopsided, about 15.7 metres one way and only 8.8 the other. The runner-up, in Busse Forest South and also on our map, reaches 36.6 metres on a trunk of just 2.47. The county scores a tree by adding its trunk in inches, its height in feet and a quarter of its crown width, and here the extra metre of trunk outweighs the missing seven metres of height. For a sense of how far a sugar maple can go, the Comfort Maple in Pelham, Ontario, another tree on our map, is six metres round. This one carries a little more than half that. About 1.4 kilometres to the south, in Allison Woods, stands the county's second-ranked basswood, the nearest other tree on this page. The two make one outing. The pin is the register's own GPS fix at the trunk. We have found no trail description that leads to it, so look for the tree rather than a sign. The register is the only source. It records size, rank and the day of measurement, and nothing about age. Nobody has dated this maple. If you know how old it is, tell us.