The Weeping Camperdown Elm at Carlson

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.