The 17th Avenue East Sugar Maple

In May 2007 this sugar maple's trunk was 47 inches across. Seattle's tree records now give it as 58. Both numbers sit in the same city entry. A comment there notes that the tree appears, with a photograph, in the book Trees of Seattle, measured at 47 inches on 17 May 2007; the current record gives 58 inches, about 15 feet round, and a height of 90 feet, about 27 metres, measured in June 2019. We have not seen the book itself, so both figures reach us through the city. Eleven inches is roughly three more feet of girth. The tree is a Seattle Heritage Tree on the private frontage of 615 17th Avenue East, on Capitol Hill, and the city last checked it in July 2024 and recorded it in service. That inventory is our only source, pin included, and the point has not been checked against the crown, so go by the address. Sugar maple is the maple of the eastern half of the continent, the one tapped for syrup, a long way from its home forests here. The lot is private, so look from the sidewalk. The Aloha Street tulip tree, the one Seattle realigned a street for, stands about 230 metres away, which makes the two an easy pair, and a Heritage coast redwood on East Highland Drive is about 750 metres off. Nobody has published when this maple was planted. If you know, tell us.