About Tree Treasures of Lancaster County

Three trillion trees grace our planet and Lancaster County has more than its fair share.

Indeed, we’re fortunate to live at a middling latitude with a moderate climate that supports a greater diversity of trees than could survive in, say, Maine. Adding to the diversity of our native trees, scores of species from Europe and Asia can and do live in Lancaster County as well.

We shouldn’t take this richness for granted. Pennsylvania’s 28 million acres were at one time

almost entirely forested but by 1900, after decades of unchecked logging, only a few hundred acres of old growth trees remained. Our state was then, as one observer put it, “a landscape of stumps and ashes.” Thankfully that’s not the case anymore, and 60% of Pennsylvania’s land once again is mantled with trees.

This website, by recognizing those trees in Lancaster County that are in some sense “special,” is meant in a small way as a tribute to all trees in our county, our state, our world.

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