Ancient trees of Winchester Cemetery

Chinkapin oaks (Quercus muehlen­bergii) are native to Kentucky and are wide­ly scat­tered across east­ern North America.  They thrive in well-drained, lime­stone-derived soils.  Chinkapins belong to the white oak group.  Their glossy green leaves resem­ble those of the chest­nut tree and are often con­fused with the chest­nut oak. 

Another native, blue ash (Fraxinus quad­ran­gu­late) has a much small­er range: Central Kentucky and Tennessee (Nashville basin), as well as select areas of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.  A dis­tinc­tive fea­ture of blue ash twigs is their four cork-like ridges, mak­ing them easy to iden­ti­fy. Many of these trees found in Clark County fields have been struck by light­ning and lost their tops.  Blue ash is on the crit­i­cal­ly endan­gered list.

These trees are notably long-lived.  The most numer­ous species in the Bluegrass over two hun­dred years old are blue ash and chinkapin oak.  Dr. Tom Kimmerer, a for­est sci­en­tist who has made a sys­tem­at­ic study of Kentucky trees, puts them in a class he refers to as “Venerable Trees” (also the title of his 2015 book) along with three oth­ers:  bur oaks (Quercus macro­carpa), Shumard oaks (Quercus shu­mardii), and king nut hick­o­ries (Carya lacin­iosa).  All five are ancient sur­vivors of old wood­land pas­tures in the Bluegrass.

Several years ago Dr. Kimmerer con­duct­ed a tree inven­to­ry of the Winchester Cemetery.  Among the 325 trees iden­ti­fied, he found one old spec­i­men of chinkapin and one of blue ash.  According to his report, “The blue ash in Central E and the chinkapin oak in Central Rev J/SS7 are almost cer­tain­ly pre-set­tle­ment trees that formed the orig­i­nal wood­land pas­ture ecosys­tem of the Winchester area.” 

I found these two trees on a recent vis­it to the ceme­tery.  Each is marked by a small stone col­umn topped with a bronze plaque iden­ti­fy­ing the species and stat­ing, “This sig­nif­i­cant tree was grow­ing here before Clark County was set­tled in 1779.”

The blue ash stands about fifty feet tall and has a diam­e­ter of over four feet.  Many years ago, Kathryn Owen iden­ti­fied this as the old­est tree in the ceme­tery.  The tree is in poor con­di­tion today.  Peaking in through an open­ing in the bark, one can see that the mas­sive inte­ri­or of the tree has been hol­lowed out.

The chinkapin oak is about six­ty feet tall with a diam­e­ter of more than five feet and appears to be in good health.  Flanking the chinkapin are four Shumard oaks (also “ven­er­a­ble trees”).  Dr. Kimmerer sur­mised that these were plant­ed soon after set­tle­ment.  They prob­a­bly lined the road that led from “the end of Washington Street to Strode’s Station,” estab­lished in 1797.  It seems appro­pri­ate that the chinkapin and Shumard oaks are found in the ceme­tery sec­tion that has the buri­als of Capt. John Strode and his wife Mary Polly.