Some residents hope to save tree in Urbana

Photo by: Rick Danzl/The News-Gazette

Jesse Wald, 7, looks up at the hackberry tree on High Street in Urbana January 3, 2014. He and his father, Stephen Wald, noticed it was marked by the city to be removed after rot was discovered in its upper limbs. The elder Wald is now leading an effort to save the tree, which he believes could be the city's biggest.

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URBANA The days could be numbered for what might be Urbana's biggest tree.

A giant, 100-plus-foot hackberry tree near the corner of High and Coler streets has been marked for removal, but a group of residents are hoping they might be able to encourage the city to find another way to secure the rotting tree instead of cutting the whole thing down.

"We call it the biggest tree in the world," said resident Stephen Wald, who was on the phone with the city arborist within 15 minutes of spotting a white dot near the base of the tree while riding his bicycle past it with his 7-year-old son, Jesse.

Well, it's not the biggest in the world but it's a contender for the biggest in the city. With a trunk diameter of 60 inches, canopy between about 78 and 99 feet and a height over 100 feet, local tree experts would have trouble producing a more massive specimen, Wald said.

"It's our General Sherman tree," Wald said.

Some of its limbs, however, have started to rot, including one that hangs ominously over the nearest home at 312 S. Coler Ave. And on a tree this big, limbs can be, well, as big as a tree.

"It's a giant hackberry, maybe one of the biggest in the community," said city arborist Mike Brunk.

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Some residents hope to save tree in Urbana