Pittsburgh names its own remarkable trees. Since 2023 the city's Shade Tree Commission, with Tree Pittsburgh, has listed them from residents' nominations, and twelve are on this page. Five are Pittsburgh Champions, the commission's title for the largest of a species on public land: a bald cypress in Mellon Park, a hornbeam in Arsenal Park, a ginkgo and a black locust a hundred metres apart in Highland Park, and an American elm in Allegheny Commons. The rest were chosen for a caramel scent, peeling bark, purple leaves, the wildlife they feed, or a history nobody has yet written down.
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Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) · Shadyside/Point Breeze, Pittsburgh
Bald cypress is a swamp tree. It evolved in the flooded bottomlands of the American South, where it pushes woody knees up out of standing water, and it has no obvious business being the champion of anything in Pittsburgh. In March 2023 the city's Shade Tree Commission named this one exactly that: the largest bald cypress on public ground anywhere in the city.
The title came out of an open call. The Remarkable Trees of Pittsburgh program, run by the Shade Tree Commission with Tree Pittsburgh, took 44 nominations from residents; 15 of them met the criteria, and the city's first list of remarkable trees was drawn from those. Three stand in Mellon Park, which was Pittsburgh's first public arboretum, and this is one of the three.
November is when it does the thing that catches people out. It is a conifer and it is deciduous, which most trees have the decency not to be at the same time. The fine needles turn a foxy rust, come down over a couple of weeks, and leave a bare fluted trunk standing through the winter with nothing on it at all.
No age, height or girth has been published for it. The city established that it is the biggest of its kind here and never wrote down by how much. If you know the numbers, send them.
Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) · Shadyside/Point Breeze, Pittsburgh
In autumn, a katsura smells of burnt sugar. As the leaves yellow and fall they release maltol, the compound behind the smell of caramel and candy floss, and for a couple of weeks the ground under the tree smells sweet enough that people stop walking and look around for a bakery.
That is the sort of thing Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission had in mind when it put this one on the city's first list of Remarkable Trees in March 2023, under the heading Tree of a Kind: not the biggest of its species, but unusual in form, origin or appearance. The list came from 44 nominations sent in by residents, of which 15 met the criteria. Three of those stand in Mellon Park, the city's first public arboretum, and this katsura is a short walk from the champion bald cypress at the Fifth Avenue and Beechwood Boulevard corner.
Cercidiphyllum japonicum is Japanese, and it grows nothing like the oaks and maples around it. The leaves are small blue-green hearts set in opposite pairs, and the branches layer outward rather than climbing, so the whole tree reads as horizontal. In October the leaves go apricot and pale gold before they drop.
No age, height or girth is on public record for it, which is true of all three Mellon Park trees on the city's list. Go in October and let your nose find it before your eyes do.
Lacebark Pine (Pinus bungeana) · Shadyside/Point Breeze, Pittsburgh
Most pines wear dark, furrowed, forgettable bark. This one peels. A lacebark pine sheds its outer bark in irregular plates, the way a plane tree does, and leaves behind a patchwork of olive, grey-green and chalk white that grows paler with age until an old trunk is close to ivory. The bark is the entire reason anybody planted it, and the reason its English name says nothing about pines.
Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission named it a Tree of a Kind in March 2023, one of the categories in the city's first Remarkable Trees list. That list came out of 44 nominations from residents, 15 of which met the criteria, and it is a deliberately different kind of honour from a champion title: nobody nominates a lacebark pine because it is large. Pinus bungeana is Chinese, often multi-stemmed, and slow, and it was recorded here for what it looks like rather than what it measures.
It stands on the north side of Mellon Park, towards Penn Avenue, across Fifth Avenue from the champion bald cypress and the katsura that were listed alongside it in the same round.
No age, height or girth has been published. What can be said is that this is one of the few trees in the park worth a February visit: the bark is the show, it runs all twelve months, and it has nothing competing with it in winter.
White Oak (Quercus alba) · Beechview, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh has a category of remarkable tree called the Giving Tree, awarded for what a tree does for everything else living around it rather than for how big it is. When the city's Shade Tree Commission drew up its first list in March 2023, this white oak in Phillips Park took that title.
It is a defensible choice. An oak is the most productive thing most American parks contain: acorns that feed deer, squirrels, jays and woodpeckers through the winter, and caterpillars in numbers no other native tree comes close to, which is what songbirds actually put in front of their chicks. A single mature Quercus alba is less a tree than a food supply with bark on it, and white oaks do this for centuries.
Be aware of how thin the record is. Only one document names this tree, the commission's own minutes from 16 March 2023, and the program's public write-ups sit on a site we could not read. There is no published age, no height, no girth, and no second account. Phillips Park is free and open, in Beechview, and the pin will get you into the park rather than to the trunk.
So this is the entry that most needs a reader. If you live in Beechview, or you have stood under this oak, tell us which one it is and what it measures.
Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) · Lawrenceville
Arsenal Park holds two of Pittsburgh's Remarkable Trees about twenty metres apart, and this bald cypress is the one that was not chosen for size. When the city's Shade Tree Commission listed it in March 2023, it went in as a Specimen Tree: a notable example of its kind on public property, which is a different honour from being the biggest. Its neighbour, a hornbeam, took the commission's Pittsburgh Champion title in the same round.
The ground is older than anything recorded about the tree. The park opened on 4 July 1907 on land that had been the Allegheny Arsenal. Nobody has written down when this cypress was planted, so the park's date says nothing about the tree's.
What the tree does announce, every year, is that it is a long way from home. Bald cypress is a conifer of southern swamps and river bottoms, at ease in standing water, and here it grows a few steps from the 40th Street entrance in Lawrenceville. It is also one of the few conifers that drops every needle. In autumn the feathery foliage turns rust and falls, and through the winter it stands as a bare, tapering spire, a conifer with nothing on it at all.
No age, girth or height has been published. If you know when it went in, or you have put a tape round it, tell us.
Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) · Lawrenceville
Pittsburgh's tree program reckons this hornbeam is good enough for Pennsylvania's state champion register, and has never published a number to back it up. The city's Shade Tree Commission listed it in March 2023 as a Pittsburgh Champion, the commission's own category for the largest, or one of the largest, trees of a species on public property. The Remarkable Trees program goes further: it calls this likely one of the biggest European hornbeams on city land, if not the biggest, and a possible nominee for the state list. That is the program's judgement, not a measurement anyone has released.
Hornbeam is a European tree with a reputation for the hardest wood in the forest. It was turned into butchers' blocks and the cogs of mill wheels, and the old English name says as much: horn for hard, beam for tree. The trunk is smooth and grey and ripples like flexed muscle, and many of the dry brown leaves hang on through the winter.
It stands in Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville, opened on 4 July 1907 on the grounds of the former Allegheny Arsenal. About twenty metres away is a bald cypress listed the same day as a Specimen Tree, so one stop by the 40th Street entrance gives you both.
No age, height or girth has been published. A tape measure would settle the state question; if you bring one, tell us what it says.
Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) · Highland Park
The city gave this bald cypress three titles at once. In March 2023 Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission listed it as a Giving Tree, for the wildlife it supports and its part in the city's ecosystem; as a Specimen Tree, a notable example of its species on public property; and as a Tree of a Kind, the category for trees unusual in appearance, origin or growth.
The last one is easy to believe. Bald cypress belongs to the swamps and river bottoms of the American South, where it stands in water for months at a time, and this one grows on Stanton Avenue on the Highland Park side of the city. It is a conifer that behaves like an oak: the soft needles turn copper in autumn and fall, and from late November it stands bare until spring.
Finding it takes a little care. The program lists it on the 6300 block of Stanton Avenue, but the address at the city's own map point reads closer to 6000, and our pin follows the map. The record says it is on public ground without saying whether that is park or street. It is about 1.2 kilometres from the Highland Park ginkgo and black locust, both city champions, which makes the three a reasonable walk.
Nobody has published an age, girth or height for it. If it stands outside your window and you know its story, tell us.
Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea) · Point Breeze
In a park of native green woodland, this beech is the wrong colour on purpose. A copper beech is a form of the European beech whose leaves come out purple instead of green, and in Frick Park that one trait is enough to pick it out from everything growing around it.
Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission named it a Remarkable Tree in the program's opening round, in March 2023, as a Tree of a Kind, the commission's category for trees unique in appearance, origin or growth. It was listed for what it looks like, not for its size, and no measurement was published.
The colour moves through the year. The leaves open a glossy purple in spring, darken through the summer, and turn copper before they fall in late autumn. In winter, with the leaves gone, it is a smooth grey beech like any other, which makes that the one season you could walk straight past it.
The route in is the one the program gives: through the gatehouse at Reynolds and Homewood Streets in Point Breeze. The city's map point for the tree sits on Tranquil Trail, so the path leads you to it. Frick Park is large, public and free, and the sawtooth oak in Westinghouse Park, another tree on the city's list, is about 700 metres away.
Nobody has published when this beech was planted, or by whom. If you know, tell us.
Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) · Highland Park
Pittsburgh's champion ginkgo grows just below a children's playground in Highland Park. In March 2024 the city's Shade Tree Commission named it a Pittsburgh Champion, the commission's own category for the largest tree of a species on public property, which makes this the biggest ginkgo the city has on record on its own land. It is a city title, not a state or national one.
The tree is a far older design than anything else in the park. Ginkgo is the last living species of a lineage that goes back to the age of the dinosaurs, and its fan-shaped, notched leaves look almost exactly like fossil leaves laid down many millions of years ago. It comes from China, it shrugs off city air, and it has been planted along streets and in parks across the world.
November is its moment. The whole crown turns butter gold, and then, often within a day or two, lets go of nearly every leaf at once, leaving a yellow circle on the grass beneath it.
The commission did not publish a girth, a height or an age. The title says it is bigger than any other ginkgo on city land; by how much is a question for whoever stands under it with a tape. If that is you, tell us. The city's champion black locust is about 100 metres away, so one visit covers both.
Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) · Highland Park
Two of Pittsburgh's champion trees stand about a hundred metres apart in Highland Park, and they could hardly be less alike. One is a ginkgo from China. This one is a black locust, a native of the eastern United States, and in March 2024 the city's Shade Tree Commission named it a Pittsburgh Champion, the commission's own category for the largest tree of a species on public property.
Black locust is a tough, fast-growing member of the pea family. Its roots fix their own nitrogen, so it thrives on poor ground, and its timber resists rot so well that it has long been split into fence posts. The bark runs in deep, rope-like ridges, and the twigs carry short paired thorns.
Its moment comes at the turn of May and June, when the crown hangs with clusters of white pea flowers, heavily scented, for about a fortnight. Stand under it then and you will smell it before you see it.
Two honest cautions. The pin is approximate: black locusts are common and look much alike, and the city's map places this one near the reservoir rather than at a marked spot. Trees on the Highland Park Reservoir embankment have also been the subject of a removal dispute under state dam-safety rules; nothing ties this tree to it, but if you find it gone, tell us.
No age, girth or height has been published.
American Elm (Ulmus americana) · Allegheny Center
Dutch elm disease killed most of the great American elms that once arched over the streets of the eastern United States. In March 2024 Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission named this one, in Allegheny Commons on the North Side, a Pittsburgh Champion: the commission's own category for the largest tree of a species on public property.
That makes it a rare thing to see at size. The disease is a fungus carried from tree to tree by bark beetles, and once it reached North America in the twentieth century it went through the country's favourite street tree for decades. Plenty of American elms are still planted and still standing, but a champion-sized one is the exception.
How this one came through, nobody has published. The commission did not record its age, girth or height, and we will not guess at a story nobody has told.
Allegheny Commons is a long, narrow public park, free to walk, and it holds a good many elms among its other trees. Our pin is approximate, near West North Avenue, so size is your best guide: the champion should be the biggest American elm in the park. American elm leaves are lopsided at the base and double-toothed along the edge, and in October they turn yellow.
If you know this tree, its age or its measurements, tell us. A city champion deserves a number.
Sawtooth Oak (Quercus acutissima) · Point Breeze North
This oak was named a Witness Tree, and the record does not say what it witnessed. Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission gave it that title in March 2024, the category the city's Remarkable Trees program keeps for trees of historical or cultural significance. The commission's minutes name the species and the park, and stop there.
It is the odd one out in other ways too. A sawtooth oak is not American. Quercus acutissima comes from East Asia, and its leaves look more like a chestnut's than an oak's: long, narrow and glossy, with a neat row of bristle-tipped teeth down each edge. The acorns sit in shaggy, fringed cups. Among the native trees of the park, it is easy to pick out once you know what you are looking for.
Westinghouse Park, in Point Breeze North, is named for George Westinghouse, the inventor of the railway air brake, who built his companies in Pittsburgh. Whether this tree's significance has anything to do with him, no source we have says, and we will not guess.
The pin is a tree-level point from the city's own map, near North Murtland Street. The copper beech in Frick Park, another tree on the city's list, is about 700 metres away, so the two make a short walk.
No age, girth or height has been published. If you know why this oak was chosen as a witness, or what it has seen, tell us: that is the story this page is still missing.