Nevada keeps a register of its biggest trees, and a surprising number of the state's champions grow on one university campus in the middle of the Mojave. Eight stand on the UNLV campus, close enough to walk between in an afternoon, and three more sit together in Winchester Park to the north. Nothing here is ancient. What is remarkable is the collection: the largest recorded coolibah, chir pine, Indian rosewood and lemon-scented gum in Nevada, in a city where all but one of them is an import.
0 of 11 visited in Las Vegas
1
The Heritage Oak of Grant Hall
Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) · not documented · UNLV campus (Academic Mall)
Nevada's champion live oak is a campus shade tree. Quercus virginiana belongs to the humid American South, the wide dark thing you see hung with Spanish moss; this one grows in the Mojave, on the Academic Mall at UNLV, and the Nevada Big Tree Register makes it the largest of its kind recorded in the state.
It is a Heritage oak, a cross bred for the height of one oak and the width of another, and the university's own arborists describe it in exactly those terms. The register measured it in 2015 at 46 inches around, 56 feet tall and 41 feet across. UNLV put it at roughly 60 feet in November 2025, which is a decade of growth rather than a disagreement between sources.
None of that makes it old, and this page does not pretend otherwise. Nobody has published a planting date, and girth alone will not date a hybrid for which no growth rate exists. If you know when it went in, tell us.
What it is instead is the front door of an accidental arboretum. A university in a desert planted a collection, watered it, and now holds state records for species from four continents, most of them within a fifteen minute walk of this oak.
The pin marks Grant Hall rather than the trunk, because neither source gives coordinates. Walk to the building and look for the widest crown on the mall.
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2
The Kissing Tree of Carlson Hill
Weeping Mulberry (Morus alba 'Pendula') · not documented · UNLV campus
The state champion weeping mulberry has its own fan account on Instagram. Students at UNLV call it the kissing tree, they photograph it, they meet under it, and on Take Your Child to Work Day the children go inside it, because a weeping mulberry is essentially a tent: the branches come off the top of the trunk and hang to the ground on every side, leaving a hollow in the middle.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015 at 68 inches around, 18 feet tall and 31 feet across, the largest recorded Morus alba 'Pendula' in the state. In November 2025 the university described it at about 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide, still on the grassy hill outside the Carlson Education Building, which is how we know it is alive.
Its age is unknown. No planting date has been published, and a grafted weeping cultivar is not something a girth measurement can date honestly. If you know, tell us.
Start here if you are only walking part of the campus. Seven more state champions stand within a few minutes of it, but this is the one people actually use, which is a fair test of a tree. The pin marks the Carlson building rather than the trunk; the hill is right outside, and you will recognise the shape immediately.
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3
The Chir Pine of the Geoscience Building
Chir Pine (Pinus roxburghii) · not documented · UNLV campus
A Himalayan pine is the largest of its species in Nevada, and it happens to stand outside the geoscience building. Pinus roxburghii grows on the dry outer foothills of the Himalaya, from Pakistan across to Bhutan, in country that takes a monsoon and then goes months with nothing. That is exactly the trick required in southern Nevada, which is why it is planted across the Southwest and why this one reaches 52 feet in the Mojave.
The Nevada Big Tree Register recorded it in 2015 at 48 inches around, 52 feet tall and 25 feet across, at the Lilly Fong Geoscience Building on the UNLV campus. The university named the same tree at the same height in November 2025, which is the evidence that it is still standing.
The needles give it away. They come in threes, hang in loose tassels and can reach a foot long, so the whole tree looks softer and shaggier than the short-needled pines used in landscaping around it. Stand under it in a wind and it sounds different too.
Neither source gives a planting date, so no age is claimed here. Nobody in the state has a bigger one on record, which is a different kind of distinction and the only one we can back.
The pin is the building rather than the trunk; the tree is the obvious one out front.
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4
The Sissoo of Barrick Museum
Sissoo Tree (Dalbergia sissoo) · not documented · UNLV campus
The largest Indian rosewood in Nevada shades a museum car park. Dalbergia sissoo is the tree that furniture and instrument makers in northern India have cut for centuries, and it is uncommon in Las Vegas for a practical reason: it grows fast and takes almost anything, which sounds ideal until a city has to maintain a street full of them, so many municipalities in the valley leave it off the planting list. This one was left alone in the Barrick Museum lot at UNLV and became the state champion.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015 at 58 inches around, 48 feet tall and 29 feet across. The university named the same tree in November 2025 and made the point that matters on an asphalt lot in a desert city, which is that it throws real shade over parked cars in July.
There is no age for it. Neither source gives a planting date, and sissoo grows quickly enough that a guess from girth would flatter it badly. If a campus grounds record has the year, we will take it.
This is the least scenic setting on the list and one of the better arguments in it. Nobody designed this tree into a landscape. It went into a car park, nobody removed it, and the state now has no larger example of its species.
The pin marks the parking lot, not the trunk.
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5
The Desert Willow of the Research Administration Building
Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) · not documented · UNLV campus
Everything else on this campus was brought here. The desert willow was already living in this landscape when the city arrived. Chilopsis linearis grows wild in the washes out at Red Rock Canyon, half an hour west, where flash floods do the pruning; the state champion is this one at UNLV, pruned instead by grounds staff into something taller and tidier than any wild plant gets.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015 at 60 inches around, 42 feet tall and 34 feet across, by the Research Administration Building. The university named the same 42 feet in November 2025.
It is not a willow. The long narrow leaves are the reason for the name, but it sits with catalpas and jacarandas, and it flowers like them: pink trumpets in loose clusters from late spring through the worst of the summer heat, worked over by hummingbirds. That is the reason to time a visit.
Two honest notes. Its age is not recorded anywhere we could find and cannot be derived. And this pin is the roughest on the page: we could not place the Research Administration Building on a current campus map, so the coordinates fall on the campus generally rather than on a building. Ask at a campus desk, or send us the spot and we will fix it.
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6
The Coolibah Eucalyptus of Winchester Park
Coolibah (Eucalyptus microtheca) · not documented · Winchester
This is the tree from Waltzing Matilda, growing beside a county cultural centre in Las Vegas. Eucalyptus microtheca is the coolibah of inland Australia, the shade over dry riverbeds and flood plains a long way from anywhere, and the largest one recorded in Nevada stands in Winchester Park off Desert Inn Road.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015: 80 inches around, 70 feet tall, 47 feet across. Two more state champions grow in the same park, which is a strange concentration for a small county park and the reason to come out here rather than only walking the university campus.
Now the part we cannot dress up. Those measurements are a decade old. The most recent independent mention we can find is a 2016 newspaper piece reporting three champions at this park without naming their species. And a windstorm in July 2025 brought down mature trees across the valley. We have no evidence this one was among them and no evidence it was not, so it is on the map with that said out loud, because a reader standing in the park can settle in ten seconds what we cannot settle from a desk.
The three Winchester trees share a single pin at the park, not at any trunk. Go in and look for the eucalyptus with the broad low crown. Then tell us what you found.
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7
The Lemon Eucalyptus of Winchester Park
Lemon-scented Gum (Eucalyptus citriodora) · not documented · Winchester
Crush a leaf of this one and your hands smell of citronella for the rest of the afternoon. The lemon-scented gum of Queensland, listed by the state register as Eucalyptus citriodora and by most botanists now as Corymbia citriodora, is the biggest tree on this whole Las Vegas list by every figure that was taken: 92 inches around, 84 feet tall and 64 feet across when the Nevada Big Tree Register recorded it in 2015.
Eighty-four feet is a serious tree in any city. In a valley where almost all the shade is engineered, a smooth pale trunk going up that far behind Desert Inn Road is not what anyone expects from a county park.
The same caution applies as to its two neighbours. The figures are eleven years old, the last independent reference we have found is a 2016 article counting three champions at this park without naming them, and the July 2025 windstorm cost the valley a lot of mature trees. We publish it because it should be there and because one local visit answers the question we cannot.
No age is recorded. Eucalypts grow fast enough that a guess from girth would be worse than an empty field, so the field stays empty. The pin is the park, shared with the coolibah and the xylosma.
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8
The Shiny Xylosma of Winchester Park
Shiny Xylosma (Xylosma congestum) · not documented · Winchester
Nevada's champion xylosma is a hedge nobody cut. Xylosma congestum is sold all over the Southwest as a clipped evergreen screen, kept at chest height along car parks and front walls for decades at a time. Left alone it becomes a small tree, and the largest one on record in this state is 24 feet tall on a 55-inch trunk, in Winchester Park.
That is the quiet appeal of a big-tree register. Champions are recorded species by species, so the list ends up documenting what ordinary landscaping plants do when somebody forgets to prune them. A 24-foot xylosma is a stranger sight than a 70-foot eucalyptus, and there is one of each in this park.
The caveats are the same as for its two neighbours. The measurements are the register's 2015 figures, the most recent independent reference we found is a 2016 article naming three champions here without listing their species, and a windstorm in July 2025 took down mature trees across the Las Vegas valley. Nobody has told us this one is gone. Nobody has confirmed it is standing either.
No age is recorded for it. The pin is the park rather than the tree, shared with the other two. If you go out and find it, or find a gap where it was, tell us and the page changes that day.
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9
The Weeping Camperdown Elm at Carlson
Camperdown Elm (Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii') · not documented · UNLV campus
Every Camperdown elm on earth descends from one mutant tree. It was found on the Earl of Camperdown's estate in Scotland in 1835, a wych elm that grew sideways and downwards instead of up, and because it could not pass that habit on by seed, the nursery trade cloned it. Each one since has been grafted onto an elm trunk at a fixed height, so the branches fall from the same point like water off a fountain.
Nevada's champion is the one by the Carlson Education Building at UNLV, and it is 11 feet tall. That is not a stunted measurement or a young tree. The graft sets the height and everything after that goes outward and down, so 21 feet of spread on a 31-inch trunk is what a large one looks like. The Nevada Big Tree Register recorded those figures in 2015 and the university reported the same 11 feet in November 2025, which for this cultivar is the expected answer rather than a stalled one.
Nobody has recorded when it was planted, and a grafted clone gives you nothing to date it from. If a campus records office or an old photograph can settle it, we would like to hear.
Our pin marks the Carlson building, not the tree, so look for the low green dome on the ground beside it. Then duck under. The inside is a cage of crossing branches, and that is the reason anyone plants them.
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10
The Buddhist Pine of White Hall
Buddhist Pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus) · not documented · UNLV campus
It is not a pine, it is not a yew, and it holds a state record. Podocarpus macrophyllus comes from Japan and southern China and is sold across the world as a clipped hedge or a patio plant, which is why the largest one recorded in Nevada is a 24-foot specimen pressed against the side of White Hall on the UNLV campus.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015 at 20 inches around, 24 feet tall, 13 feet across. That is the slimmest trunk in this city's entry by a distance. Big-tree registers work species by species rather than by absolute size, so a champion is simply the largest known example of its kind, and for a plant most people keep in a container, this is what the ceiling looks like. UNLV reported the same 24 feet in November 2025, in landscaping that has recently been redone around it.
No age is recorded and none can be derived: there is no published growth rate for this species under desert irrigation, and inventing one would be worse than leaving the field empty. If you know when it was planted, tell us.
The coordinates mark the building, not the trunk. Once you are there it is easy: dark, leathery, narrow leaves in dense whorls, like a yew hedge that got away from somebody.
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11
The Texas Olive Behind the Paint Shop
Texas Olive (Cordia boissieri) · not documented · UNLV campus
Nevada's champion Texas olive grows behind the paint shop. Not on the mall, not by a lecture hall, not anywhere a university would put a specimen tree: it stands on the working side of the UNLV campus, behind the buildings where the maintenance crews are, and no larger Cordia boissieri has been recorded in the state.
The Nevada Big Tree Register measured it in 2015 at 40 inches around and 20 feet tall, with a 14-foot spread. The university confirmed the same 20 feet in November 2025 and described what it does through the year: white trumpet flowers that hummingbirds work over, then a fruit that looks like an olive and is not one, and should not be eaten.
The species comes from the lower Rio Grande, south Texas and northern Mexico, and is planted across the Southwest for the flowers rather than for anything useful.
Two things before you walk out to it. No planting date has been published, so this page gives no age. And our pin is the weakest on this page: we could not place the campus paint shop on a public map, so the coordinates point at the facilities management area, which is a neighbourhood rather than a spot. If you find the tree, send us where it is and the pin gets fixed the same day.
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