The 38th Street Elm

Two American elms in northwest Washington have trunks within a centimetre and a half of each other, and they could hardly have grown up more differently. One spreads across open lawn in Hardy Park. This one grew on a sidewalk in Glover Park, outside 2716 38th Street NW, with houses on one side and traffic on the other. The city's tree inventory measures it at about 162 centimetres across at chest height, roughly 5.1 metres round, which places it among the three or four largest American elms on the city's books. The street shows in the crown. Laser survey fields in the record give it a height of about 24 metres but a spread of only around 240 square metres, well under half the area of the Hardy Park elm. The elm went up rather than out. It survives because it is looked after. The record notes a pruning in March 2026 and an injection, the treatment that protects American elms against Dutch elm disease, and an inspection in May 2026 rated it Good. The nearest street tree of any size is a scarlet oak of about 61 centimetres across, less than half its width. The inventory is the only source, and it does not say when the tree was planted. Its age is unknown. If you know the story of this block, or when the elms of Glover Park went in, tell us.