The Hardy Rubber Tree of Linda Hall Library
United StatesKansas CityRockhill / UMKC area
Approximate location.
A torn leaf of this tree does not come apart cleanly. The two halves hang together on fine threads of latex, and that is where the hardy rubber tree gets its name. Eucommia ulmoides is the last of its line. It is the only living species in its family, a Chinese tree with no close relatives left anywhere. In Western gardens it is stranger still: the trees in cultivation are a male clone, so they flower every year and have never set a seed. This one was planted in 1975 in the southeast corner of the grounds, and it is registered as 13b-1-1 on the Greater Kansas City champion list. The library's survey around 2008 gave it 29 inches of trunk, 74 centimetres, standing 26 feet tall with a 33 foot spread. A Kansas City gardening magazine that came by in 2017 put it at 35 feet and expected it to reach 50 in time. Those two heights do not contradict each other; they are nine years apart, and the tree was doing what trees do in between. Being the metro champion of a species almost nobody plants is a title won in a thin field, and it is worth the detour regardless. The grounds are free and open dawn to dusk. This is the least imposing tree on the list and the only one with no relatives.
The Linda Hall Library arboretum, 5109 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, SE corner of the groundsYou can recognise it as the slim tree in the southeast corner of the grounds, 74 centimetres round, whose leaves hang together on fine threads of latex when they tear.
Free. The Linda Hall Library grounds and arboretum are open to the public dawn to dusk.
Near Rockhill Road on the UMKC-adjacent stretch of Cherry Street; served generally by RideKC bus routes in the area, no single confirmed stop within a short walk.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.