The Zelkova Giant of Webster Park

Seven trees line the west and southwest edges of Webster Park, and the city's own heritage register singles out one of them as almost the biggest of its kind in Washington. That is a saw-leaf zelkova, a species that shows up on street-tree lists more often than it shows up this large. The register puts it at 53 feet tall with a crown spreading 66 feet, wider than the tree is tall, which is the shape zelkova takes when it has room and time: a vase-like spread of branches fanning out from a short trunk rather than one central spire. Nobody has published its age or measured its girth. HistoryLink's 2012 survey of Spokane's notable trees independently photographed a zelkova at this same park, confirming the species stands here without needing to take the city's word for the size claim. Zelkova serrata comes from Japan, Korea and eastern China, and North American cities lean on it as a substitute for the American elms that Dutch elm disease wiped out, since it takes a similar vase shape without the vulnerability. Most of the ones planted for that reason are still young. This one has had long enough to become the kind of specimen a register bothers to single out by name.