| National Champion
| White Ash Fraxinus americana Olive Family — Ash Genus Montebello's Italian Restaurant Palisades, Rockland County, New York Circumference = 304 inches (25.3 feet)
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The White Ash is the most beautiful and useful of our native Ashes. It often becomes 70 to 80 feet in height, and three feet in diameter, grows rapidly, and is easily propagated. One of the White Ash's most notable uses is as the favored wood to make bats for the all-American sport of baseball.
This tremendous White Ash tree is growing in the front yard of Montebello's Italian Restaurant on the southwest side of U.S. 9W where it intersects NY 340 to Sparkill, not far from the Hudson River. The tree is estimated at over 350 years old, while the restaurant is a fine dining roadhouse with a history over 100 years old.
| Identification & Culture |
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To display their pride in their magnificent tree, owners Rick and Janet Irrizary adorned their champion with a large white ribbon, a plaque and a bed to flowers. The tree is in reasonably good health despite having its root system confined by the roadhouse, a parking lot and US 9W. Unfortunately, this is a male tree, and thus can't produce seeds.
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| Mount Vernon clones history
USA TODAY June 20, 2001 |
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The White Ash was a favorite tree of George Washington, the Founding Father and first President of the United States of America, who planted it extensively on his Virginia estate. Consequently, ChampTree™ white ashes cloned from this mighty specimen will be featured in plantings to reforest George Washington's estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. For more on this, see:
Doomed Forests
Subject to Major Reforestation
TERRA: The Earth Restoration and Reforestation Alliance — www.championtrees.org — updated 8/14/2003