Conservation of the Hollow Tree in Vancouver’s

heritage-conservation project. impressive 50 feet (15 m). Its present truncated height is about 50 feet (15 m). Vancouver’s location at the southern edge of the coastal British Columbia rainforest has made it home to some of the world’s tallest trees, including two Douglas firs more than 400 feet tall, which were felled around 1900.3 Western red cedars grow stouter but less tall than Douglas firs. The Hollow Tree, which has lost its upper portion, likely to wind or lightning, may have reached a height of between 150 and 200 feet (45 to 60 m).4 The heart of the Hollow Tree began to decay centuries ago. Today the void, entered from the east side of the tree, is large enough to accommodate several dozen people. Recent analysis of the tree rings (which survive only near the circumference) by the Tree-Ring Laboratory at the University of British Columbia indicate that the Hollow Tree was last alive around 1875; after then it ceased to produce new growth rings.5 The tree survived windstorms in 1934, 1962 (Typhoon Freda), and 2006, which collectively destroyed some 15,000 trees in Stanley Park.6 Canada’s Dominion Entomologist, inspecting the trees in Stanley Park, reported in 1914 that “the Cedar is very generally ‘stag-headed’ and hollowhearted.”7 Foresters recommended at the time that the “stags,” or dead heads, be cut so as to reduce the risk of their being blown down in windstorms and to improve the tree’s appearance and that the hollow cavities be filled with concrete to extend the time before the remainder of the tree would fall to pieces. However, concrete was never inserted into the Hollow Tree (nor any other tree in Stanley Park). It is generally believed that the Hollow Tree lost its upper portion at some time before the arrival of Europeans in