The Cottonwood of National Grove

Ranked only third among Cook County's forest preserve cottonwoods, this tree has a trunk 5.82 metres round, the thickest recorded on our Chicago map bar one. The exception is its rival at Thatcher Woods, about seven kilometres north. The two are close enough to be twins on paper: 12 centimetres of girth and 2.5 metres of height between them, this one at 39 metres, 128 feet, and the Thatcher tree at 41.5. The register still sets a full ranked place between them. To see how far out of line these cottonwoods are, set this one beside the oaks. The thickest white oak on this page, the county's second-ranked tree at McClaughrey Springs Woods, is 4.76 metres round, more than a metre thinner. The champion chinkapin oak a few hundred metres north of here manages 3.72. The Forest Preserves of Cook County measured it on 21 December 2023, the same day as the third-ranked hackberry, which stands about 125 metres to the north-north-east. With the chinkapin oak beyond that, it makes the southern end of a short line of three ranked trees in National Grove. The register is the only source for this tree, and it records size and rank but not age. Nobody has dated this cottonwood. If you know how old it is, tell us.