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The biggest coffeetree.


This double-trunked national champion won't produce a "premium blend Premium Blend is a television show on the American cable television channel Comedy Central. The program features a well-known stand up comedian as an emcee who introduces four or five lesser known comedians looking for a big break on television. ," but it will give you an extract that'll poison flies.

When Daniel Boone convinced the first pioneers to follow his Wilderness Trail into Kentucky, he neglected to tell them there wouldn't be any coffee. So for a while they had to settle for a bitter brew made from the seeds of a tree they named--with more nostalgia than conviction--the Kentucy coffeetree. (Scientists call it Gymnocladus dioicus.) Two centuries later, Kentucky lawmakers sentimental over this bit of their heritage designated the species as the state tree.

Today the Bluegrass bluegrass, any species of the large and widely distributed genus Poa, chiefly range and pasture grasses of economic importance in temperate and cool regions. In general, bluegrasses are perennial with fine-leaved foliage that is bluish green in some species.  State exports no "pioneer blend" coffee substitute, but it has produced one of the country's largest specimens of Kentucky coffeetree. (Its co-champ grows, perhaps, oddly, in Van Buren County, Michigan Van Buren County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the population was 76,263. The county seat is Paw Paw6. It is part of the Kalamazoo-Portage, MI MSA.

It was named for Martin Van Buren, before he became president. Van Buren was U.
.) Down the road from West Liberty, Kentucky West Liberty is a city in Morgan County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 3,277 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Morgan CountyGR6. It is on the banks of the Licking River at the junction of Kentucky Route 7 and US 460.  (which is a good distance east of Liberty), past Index and Grassy Creek, the champion grows on the tobacco and cattle farm of Bert and Barbara Lawson. Their son James, along with State Forester Elaine Childers, nominated the tree for AFA's National Register of Big Trees The National Register of Big Trees is a list of the largest living specimens of each tree variety found in the continental United States. A tree on this list is often called a National Champion Tree.  in 1985.

No one knows exactly how old the champ is, but 92-year-old Lilly McGuire, a local resident, remembers seeing it 81 years ago when it was already one foot in diameter.

In the 16 years the Lawsons have lived in the shade of its large lacy leaves, the tree's two trunks have spread one foot apart, adding to its girth GIRTH., A girth or yard is a measure of length. The word is of Saxon origin, taken from the circumference of the human body. Girth is contracted from girdeth, and signifies as much as girdle. See Ell.  but threatening someday to block the road it overhangs. Rather than accept offers to trim it back, Lawson plans to guy the trunks together to fend off challengers to its champion status.

The Lawsons have yet to make coffee from their nobletree--it's enough for them to know that people used to poison flies with an extract from the leaves. Instead, they're quite satisfied to enjoy the aesthetic qualifies of their most distinguished neighbor.
COPYRIGHT 1991 American Forests
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1991, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:Kentucky coffeetree
Author:Bronaugh, Whit
Publication:American Forests
Date:May 1, 1991
Words:314
Previous Article:Sugar. (personal narrative on the sugar maple tree)
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