Yes, Kansas City, that’s one big tree — the largest in Missouri, the state says

Kansas City is certainly home to some gorgeous big trees, but most of the true state champions — the biggest of each species — are in eastern and southern Missouri.

Until now.

Word is in from the Missouri Department of Conservation, and the largest known living tree in Missouri stands in historic Kessler Park in the Old Northeast neighborhood.

It’s an eastern cottonwood near the middle of the park’s disc golf course, just west of the old hilltop reservoir and below scenic Lookout Point. Although anyone can drive by and see the tree from Reservoir Drive, it’s even more dramatic when you walk up close — but beware the poison ivy on the trunk.

The tree towers 125 feet, with a magnificent crown spread of 120 feet. The trunk is more than 9 feet across and almost 29 feet around.

“I think that is really awesome,” Kansas City forester Kevin Lapointe said of the certification. “It’s wonderful that we have it here in a park that the public can come up here and see this tree.”

A disc golfer from Grandview noticed the tree and took the time to nominate it for the Missouri State Champion Tree program. Chuck Connor, an urban forester with the Conservation Department, measured it using a formula to gauge record tree size and determined that it’s the largest known living tree of any kind in Missouri, with a score of 499. That topped the previous biggest tree, also a cottonwood, in the St. Louis area.

Connor guesses the Kansas City tree is at least 70 years old. Cottonwoods are fast growers, so they can reach humongous size without being hundreds of years old.

The tree is in an exposed grassy area that’s frequently mowed, so that has helped it grow without competition from other trees. Plus, it’s likely in very good soil, and its location in a swale helps with moisture.

But the open land just below Lookout Point also leaves the tree vulnerable to wind and ice storms, so it’s amazing it has survived and done so well, Connor said.

“It’s seen a lot in its day, and it’s come through it pretty well,” he said.

The champion tree program is run nationally by the nonprofit American Forests to celebrate trees and the importance of planting and caring for them as vital for a healthy environment. Of course, Missouri and Kansas trees don’t come close to competing with such trees as the giant sequoias in California, which can reach heights of 300 feet with a trunk diameter of 30 feet or more.

Other states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and Virginia have many more national champion trees in all sorts of species. But Missouri and Kansas boast magnificent native varieties, and the Missouri Conservation Department and the Kansas Forest Service encourage volunteers to be on the lookout for unreported giants.

The champion tree list is always in flux because trees die or fall victim to tornadoes, floods and other threats. Or previously unrecorded trees are nominated and certified.

Each native species has its own champion tree, and in his 12 years on the job in the Kansas City area, Connor has certified six, although some of those have since lost their designation. Currently three trees in Jackson County, including this eastern cottonwood, are state champions.

Kansas, despite its harsh prairie climate, actually has an even bigger eastern cottonwood in the northwestern part of the state, with a score of 553 points.

And in Johnson, Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties, the Kansas Forest Service has identified 63 state champions of different species, including two national champions in Johnson County. Those are a Western soapberry on commercial property in Olathe and a Washington hawthorn on private property in Overland Park.

This story was originally published November 11, 2014 at 1:30 PM with the headline "Yes, Kansas City, that’s one big tree — the largest in Missouri, the state says."