One of Toronto’s older elm trees, possibly throughout the south of Ontario, is in its last legs.
But as the city ends the plans to tear down Barton Avenue’s reference point next week, a tree expert from the University of Toronto is determined to ensure that he lives again.
Eric Davies, a forest environmentalist from the University of Toronto, visited the tree earlier this week to register its size and gather its seeds, which will be used to grow a copy of the tree in the future as part of the city’s Treos seed diversity program (TSDP). He and his students measured the height of the trunk at 40 meters and its circumference at 5.5 meters.
“It’s sad,” he said about the fate of the tree. “Everyone who descends, wants to do some kind of justice improving our ability to maintain Toronto trees and forests.”
The residents of the neighborhood of Seaton Village, in the area of Christie and Bloor streets, noticed earlier this year that the American old elm remained sterile this spring, while the very young trees nearby were cultivating leaves.
A giant elm in Christie Pits is “almost dead.” But as Michelle’s song of CBC explains, its genetics can be preserved.
Ethan Tantram, thirteen, who passes the tree every day on his way to school, said that he and his father noticed this spring that the tree seemed sick.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said this week. “It is a great thing in our community.”
It is not clear what is killing the tree
The teenager used his drone to see the tree branches more closely and his father then called the city to inform that the tree was not working well.
The city staff said an inspector determined during a visit to May 30 that the tree was dying and represented a danger to the public.
The spokesman for the city, Shane Gerard, told CBC Toronto in an email that the city has tried to determine exactly what is killing the tree, but the laboratory results have not been conclusive.
“The tree was observed with a slimming crown and yellowish leaves at the end of the summer of 2024,” says its email. “Eliminating the tree will prevent it from becoming a danger, since dead branches are more prone to breakage.”
Davies, who is recognized by the city as a seed collector for the seed diversity program, says it will be present on Tuesday when the tree is demolished.
“This is one of the best remaining elms in Toronto (Y) has a stock of high quality genes,” he said. “Each is not only ecologically important but culturally.”
The local artist Jode Roberts, who lives in view of the tree, agreed that it means a lot for the community.
Last year, he used old photos of the city’s archives neighborhood to nail the age of the tree to more than 100 years.
He then designed a patrimonial plaque that explained the meaning of the tree and connected it to a public services post next to the tree.
“There is a deep sadness when something like this disappears,” Toronto told CBC. “He survived the disease of the Dutch elm and the development of the city around him. So sure, let’s take their babies and see if we can make more majestic elms.”
Native trees overcome in number, says the researcher
Once Davies has gathered the ELM seeds, they will enter the TSDP, which will distribute them to one of the various nurseries participating in the Metropolitan Area of Toronto. Once they have matured, in four or seven years, they will be planted in one of the 80 parks and ravines in the city, one that has been identified as a good option for a new elm tree.
Davies and a team of U of T students are spending the summer mapping the largest and most old native tree species in the city. He says that these native trees are surpassed in Toronto by invasive species, and expects its map to allow the city to help in its regeneration.
Every tree that is assigned and its seeds collected is measured, he said. These seeds will be transmitted to the TSDP for regeneration.
One of Davies’s summer students is Sam Sedgwick, who studies for a mastery in forest conservation at U of T.
He called Barton Avenue Elm the most impressive he has seen so far.
“With the presence of Dutch elm disease, we have lost almost all the great elm of the city, so the fact that it is still here really talks about its resistance,” he said. “We really want to preserve that genetics as much as we can.”
Sedgwick helped take measures from ElM earlier this week. He pointed out that the tree has more than five meters of circumference, 40 meters high and that its canopy covers five houses in Barton Avenue.
“That is a lot of air conditioning,” he said.
