The City of Fayetteville Urban Forestry Advisory Board and Parks and Recreation Staff (Urban Foresters) created the Amazing Trees of Fayetteville project to celebrate the unique character of trees in our city. The program is designed to promote tree preservation and celebrate the urban forest in our city. Each year, UFAB and the City’s Urban Forestry staff will choose one tree in our city that exemplifies unique character by being large, uniquely shaped, or a rare tree species. Each Amazing Tree receives a plaque explaining its unique characteristics, and the tree is placed in the City’s tree registry program, a database of significant trees maintained by Urban Forestry.
2018 Amazing Tree: Wilson Park Bois d'Arc
Maclura pomifera Bois d'Arc, also known as Osage Orange or Horse Apple Approximately 100 years old
This tree was chosen for its unique size, root structure, and age. The tree is in Wilson Park and one of the most photographed trees in the City. An estimate 100 years of age, this specimen is considered a “Witness Tree” because it has been present for a number of events in the history of our city. This tree has witnessed:
Trent's Pond, used as a swimming hole until the 1920s when the first pool was built
Tourist camps of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s
Wilson Park becoming Fayetteville's first official park in 1944
The Great Depression
17 different US presidents
The name Bois d'Arc, or "bow-wood" was given to this tree by French explorers because the Native Americans used its extremely hard, durable wood in crafting their bows. The tree's green, pebbly fruit (which grows only on the female trees) resembles an orange, but is hard and inedible by humans, though horses and squirrels do eat it. The fruit has also been used as a traditional pest management remedy: placed around a home's foundation, the fruit is said to repel bugs.