I’ve been stumped (ha!) with my 33 in 3 project to learn to identify 10 trees, as I’d really wanted to start with the Ohio Champion Trees at Spring Grove Cemetery. I believe Spring Grove has 5 trees; I only knew where two were located.

Then on Saturday, during one of my routine walks, I came upon a tram tour of the cemetery. Spring Grove runs tons of tours… Civil War soldiers, local beer barons, influential women of the 1800s, etc. But at that moment, the tour I’d happened upon was talking about a tree–specifically one of Spring Grove’s Ohio Champions: the yellow buckeye.

I’ve passed this tree ten million times of course, but it had never particularly caught my eye. As I’ve noted before, the Champions have a large stone in front to identify themselves, but the buckeye sits perched on a hill and I’d never seen the stone before.

Any Ohioan worth their salt can tell you that the buckeye is our state tree. Wikipedia doesn’t have much else to say about my new friend, except that the buckeye is an ornamental tree that’s known for being gorgeous in autumn. I don’t disagree.

Three cheers for serendipity!