The Honeylocust of Brandywine Park

Delaware's champion honeylocust has a trunk less than half as thick as one we map in Florence. That is not a knock on it. The Delaware Forest Service ranks this tree first among the honeylocusts of the state, at 231 centimetres round, 25 metres tall and a crown averaging about 13 metres across. The Florence tree is 525 centimetres round and 21 metres tall. So the champion makes its case upward rather than outward. It is taller than every honey locust we publish: the Florence giant, the Warsaw one at 18 metres, the Cagliari one at 15. A narrow crown on a tall stem is what you are looking at. This is also the most central tree in Wilmington on our map. It stands in Brandywine Park, less than a kilometre from downtown, free and open, and the champion eastern hemlock in Brandywine Cemetery is a walk of about 560 metres away. Together they make the short city walk; the bigger trees on this page stand outside the city. The ranking dates from November 2024, and a dated observation at the spot within the last four years confirms it was alive then. The register has no age for it and no planting date, and we have not found one either. If you know when it went into the park, tell us.