60 Fun Facts About Arbor Day

In which US state was the first American Arbor Day held in 1872?

Newspaper editor J. Sterling Morton proposed it to the state board of agriculture, and the treeless prairie state took to it fast.

Roughly how many trees were planted on the first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872?

Counties and individuals were offered prizes for the most trees properly planted, which helped drive the huge total.

What is the customary way to observe Arbor Day?

Unlike most holidays that look back at an event, Arbor Day is built around doing something for the future.

On which day is National Arbor Day observed in the United States?

Many states pick their own dates to match local planting seasons, from midwinter in the Deep South to late spring in the far north.

Which US president proclaimed National Arbor Day in 1972, on the holiday's 100th anniversary?

Congress requested the designation by joint resolution; Arbor Day has never been a federal holiday.

What was J. Sterling Morton's job after he moved west to the plains in 1854?

He edited the Nebraska City News and later served as US Secretary of Agriculture under Grover Cleveland.

Which US president appointed J. Sterling Morton as Secretary of Agriculture?

Morton served from 1893 to 1897 and backed Cleveland in setting up national forest reservations.

When it made Arbor Day a legal state holiday in 1885, which date did the holiday's home state choose?

April 22 is now better known as Earth Day, which was launched in 1970, nearly a century later.

Which governor issued the first official Arbor Day proclamation in 1874?

Furnas was himself a horticulturist and orchard grower, a natural ally for Morton's tree campaign.

What company did the Arbor Day founder's son Joy go on to found?

Joy Morton also founded the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois, in 1922, keeping the family tree obsession alive.

What is the Morton family estate, now a state historical park where the holiday began, called?

The 52-room mansion grew from a four-room frame house and is surrounded by 270 varieties of plants and shrubs.

In what year was the Arbor Day Foundation founded?

It launched on the centennial of the first Arbor Day and now has more than a million members.

What is the name of the Arbor Day Foundation program that recognizes communities for good urban forestry?

To qualify, a town needs a tree board, a tree ordinance, a minimum per-capita forestry budget, and an Arbor Day celebration.

How much per resident must a community spend on urban forestry for Arbor Day Foundation recognition?

More than 3,900 communities have qualified, and nearly half of Americans live in one.

Which two YouTubers launched the #TeamTrees fundraiser with the Arbor Day Foundation in 2019?

They raised $20 million to plant 20 million trees in just 56 days, the largest YouTube fundraiser ever at the time.

Which Connecticut educator chaired the 1883 national Arbor Day campaign and later took the idea to Japan?

He delivered his Arbor Day and Village Improvement message in Japan in 1895 and also promoted it in Australia, Canada and Europe.

Which president issued an "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States" in 1907?

Pennsylvania conservationist Israel McCreight had pushed for it, arguing that conservation talks aimed at lumbermen missed the young.

In which month does Hawaii officially observe Arbor Day?

The first Friday in November marks the start of the islands' rainy season, the best time to get a young tree established.

Florida law sets its state Arbor Day on the third Friday of which month?

Cool-season planting gives roots time to settle before Florida's brutal summer; Louisiana uses the same date.

Which state observes Arbor Day on the third Monday in May, one of the latest dates in the country?

Maine also waits until May, using its third full week; both states have to wait for the ground to thaw.

By what year did all 50 US states officially celebrate Arbor Day?

After Nebraska, the holiday spread first to Kansas, Tennessee, Minnesota and Ohio.

China's Arbor Day, March 12, commemorates the death of which leader who championed reforestation?

A 1979 resolution asked every able-bodied citizen aged 11 to 60 to plant three to five trees a year.

How many trees per year does China's 1979 tree-planting resolution ask each able-bodied citizen to plant?

Citizens can do equivalent work in seedling nurseries or tree care instead, and many couples marry the day before and plant a tree together.

Tu BiShvat, celebrated in Israel by planting saplings, is known as the new year for what?

It falls on the 15th of Shevat, usually January or February, and was originally used to calculate the age of fruit trees for tithing.

India's week-long tree-planting festival, held in the first week of July, is called what?

The name means roughly "great forest festival"; K. M. Munshi made it a national event in 1950.

Where did Australia hold its first Arbor Day event in 1889?

Today Planet Ark's National Tree Day falls on the last Sunday in July, with a schools version the Friday before.

Which Spanish village claims the first modern Arbor Day, organized by its priest in 1805?

The three-day festival started on Carnival Tuesday with a poplar, and the village still celebrates on that day.

In South Korea, Arbor Day on April 5 was a public holiday until which year?

Sikmogil lost its day-off status but tree-planting activities carried on regardless.

Which Kenyan founded the tree-planting Green Belt Movement and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize?

She was the first African woman to win the prize, and the movement she started in 1977 has planted more than 51 million trees.

How many trees were planted at the Green Belt Movement's very first event, on World Environment Day 1977?

Each honored a historical community leader; women were then paid a small stipend for every seedling they raised and planted.

What was Johnny Appleseed's real name?

He planted fenced nurseries rather than scattering seeds at random, and returned every year or two to tend them.

In which colony was Johnny Appleseed born in 1774?

His birthplace in Leominster now has a granite marker on a street renamed Johnny Appleseed Lane.

Which American poet wrote the 1913 poem "Trees", a staple of Arbor Day school programs?

He was killed by a sniper in France in 1918 at age 31; the poem outlived nearly everything else he wrote.

Which Our Gang character gives a famously whiny rendition of "Trees" in the 1936 short "Arbor Day"?

Critic Leonard Maltin called it the poem's all-time worst rendition; the popular musical setting was written by Oscar Rasbach in 1922.

In Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, what does the Once-ler chop down to knit his Thneeds?

The brightly tufted Truffulas are the whole valley's livelihood; Seuss called The Lorax his personal favorite of his books and said it came out of him being angry.

What single word is left carved on a pile of rocks when the Lorax departs?

The Once-ler finally understands it: nothing improves unless someone cares enough to act, so he hands the boy the last seed.

Who voiced the Lorax in the 2012 animated film?

He recorded the role in five languages, learning the lines phonetically, and the film opened at number one on Seuss's 108th birthday.

Methuselah, one of the oldest known living trees at over 4,800 years, is what kind of tree?

Harsh weather and poor nutrients slow its decay; the Forest Service kept its exact spot in California's White Mountains secret for decades.

What happened in 1964 to Prometheus, a Nevada tree that was possibly the oldest living tree?

Nobody involved knew its record age until the rings were counted afterward, and the decision remains controversial.

Hyperion, the world's tallest known living tree, is what species?

Discovered in 2006 in Redwood National Park, it stands over 380 feet, and the area around it was closed in 2022 because visitors trampled its base.

General Sherman, the largest single-stem tree on Earth by volume, grows in which California park?

A utopian logging colony briefly renamed it the Karl Marx Tree in the 1880s before the park was created and the old name returned.

Pando, a single Utah organism of about 47,000 identical stems, is a clone of which tree?

Its name is Latin for "I spread"; the shared root system covers about 106 acres, making it the world's heaviest known organism.

Old Tjikko, a roughly 9,500-year-old clonal tree in Sweden, is what species?

Its visible trunk is only a few centuries old; the ancient root system keeps sprouting new ones through layering.

In tree-ring dating, one growth ring normally represents how much time?

Securely dated ring records for parts of Europe now reach back nearly 14,000 years, and are used to calibrate radiocarbon dating.

Which Renaissance figure first noted that trees form rings annually, reflecting growing conditions?

The observation appears in his Treatise on Painting, published in 1651, more than a century after his death.

What is the scientific name for the study of tree rings?

It comes from the Greek for tree, time and study, and can date a timber to the exact year it formed.

What is the nut of an oak tree called?

Each one usually holds a single seed inside a little cup called a cupule, and jays and squirrels plant many of them by forgetting where they buried them.

Which two kinds of animals are scatter-hoarders whose forgotten caches plant new oaks?

They keep remarkable mental maps of their caches, but the odd forgotten nut is enough to grow the next generation.

Roughly how many species of oak exist worldwide?

Almost a third are threatened with extinction, and the genus name Quercus is simply Latin for oak.

What gas do trees release as a byproduct of photosynthesis?

It comes from splitting water molecules, and photosynthesis by plants and algae keeps Earth's atmosphere breathable.

What is the green pigment in leaves that captures light for photosynthesis?

It absorbs red and blue light and reflects green, which is why leaves look green until autumn reveals the other pigments.

What is a young tree called?

Most Arbor Day plantings are saplings a few feet tall; the Arbor Day Foundation gives ten to new members.

According to a 2015 estimate, roughly how many mature trees are there on Earth?

About 15 billion are cut down each year and only 5 billion planted, one reason tree-planting holidays keep spreading.

What is the official state tree of the state where Arbor Day began?

Kansas has the same state tree; the fast-growing cottonwood was one of the few natives that thrived on the open prairie.

The sugar maple is the state tree of New York, Vermont, West Virginia and which other state?

Michigan and Maine both chose the eastern white pine, and New Hampshire the white birch.

Which state's official tree is the pecan?

Georgia went with the southern live oak, Alabama the longleaf pine and Oklahoma the eastern redbud.

Which author's statue replaced J. Sterling Morton's in the US Capitol in 2023?

Nebraska had donated the Morton bronze in 1937; his record of racism and political corruption led to the swap.

Which Japanese public holiday, held on May 4, is the country's closest equivalent to Arbor Day?

It began as Emperor Hirohito's birthday on April 29 and was renamed in 1989 to honor his love of plants; it moved to May 4 in 2007.

Which country has marked Arbor Day on 5 June, aligned with World Environment Day, since 1977?

The old August 4 date was too late in the year for planting; the first New Zealand Arbor Day planting was at Greytown in 1890.

How many trees did roughly 150,000 people plant on North Macedonia's first "Tree Day" in 2008?

Symbolically one tree per citizen, and a non-working day was declared after catastrophic 2007 wildfires; the tradition continues yearly.