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World's Tallest Tree
Cal Poly Humboldt is home to the tallest tree on any college campus, anywhere in the world!
This was confirmed by HSU Forestry Professor and renowned tall tree expert Steve Sillett and his graduate students who have painstakingly measured and mapped the major limbs of this impressive Sitka spruce. In 2017, its height was measured at 240 feet.
At around 140 years old, the spruce is a youngster compared to some of its siblings, although finding older trees can be difficult due to the spruce’s appeal on the lumber market. The trees are known for their speedy growth and they are the only conifers that are capable of reaching 300 feet by 200 years old in ideal conditions.
The Sitka spruce is located near Fern Lake, a manmade reservoir a few hundred yards east of the Athletics complex that was designed to feed fresh water to the campus’s fish hatchery. No doubt the tree has been passed by countless disc golfers as they play the Redwood Curtain course.
This particular patch of forest is a testament to nature’s enduring regenerative power. Having been thoroughly logged in the last century, the forest contains an incredible amount of high biomass for a formerly-logged second growth forest—and that’s despite the fact that for years the forest’s recovery was essentially unplanned. “This is one of the best examples of a second growth forest,” says Sillett.