The Washington Square Ohio Buckeye

The taller of the two state champions on this corner of Washington Square is the slim one. Utah's register measured this Ohio buckeye in 2018 at 19.2 metres, almost a metre above the champion hackberry standing about 15 metres away, on a trunk of 213 centimetres and a crown only 13.7 metres across. Two record trees of two different species, on one corner of a city block. The Ohio buckeye is a Midwestern tree, Ohio's state tree, and a long way from home on the Wasatch Front. Buckeyes are among the first trees to leaf out in spring, opening hand-shaped leaves of five leaflets, then pale yellow-green flower spikes. In autumn it drops spiny husks holding a glossy brown nut with a pale eye, the buckeye that gives it its name. The nuts are poisonous, so admire them and leave them. The square around it holds the Salt Lake City and County Building, finished in 1894 and Utah's first state capitol from 1896 to 1915. Nobody has written down whether the buckeye was planted before or after any of that. The register's measurement dates from 2018, and the newest observation we can find is of its neighbour, in May 2025, not of this trunk. It was standing at the last count. If you pass the southwest corner of the square, tell us how it looks, and if you know its age, tell us that too.