Big changes for big trees: deaths, growth spurts, and a new list-altering rule. It's our biennial check on the state of our nation's biggest trees

If you hoped to see your name in the National Register of Big Trees again for that really big tree you measured a while back you're likely to be disappointed. A newly decreed 10-year rule states that no tree can retain its crown longer than 10 years without being remeasured.

One hundred champs this year were casualties of the new rule, all trees not remeasured since 1998. The demise of many more now-former champs became known only because nominators and state big tree coordinators were motivated by the new rule to find and remeasure them. This has resulted in the biggest set of changes ever in the 68-year history of the Big Tree program.

For example: In this Register you will not find 358 of the 873 champs and co-champs that reigned in 2006, a turnover of 41 percent.

While the 10-year rule has purged the Register of monarchs that have been resting on laurels from long ago, it has also spurred a search that resulted in 219 new monarchs, almost double the number of new champs from 2006. The net result--a total of 733 champs and co-champs representing 636 species and varieties--is a 16 percent drop.

Still, the 2008 Register honors a select group of trees of formidable dimensions. Stack them on top of one another and they soar more than 9 miles high. Add the area of their trunk cross sections and make a circular trunk 136 feet in diameter. Their combined crowns would shade 46 acres, the equivalent of 35 football fields! Line up those same crowns, leaf to leaf, and they would form a line nearly 7 miles long.

One thing not affected by the new 10-year rule: megatrees (trees scoring more than 650 points). In fact, the flurry of remeasuring caused several to improve their standings. The giant sequoia, coast redwood, western redcedar, Sitka spruce, and coast Douglas-fir all retained their positions in the top five. But a growth of 70 inches in girth for the Port-Orford-cedar moved it from eighth to sixth place overall, nudging it ahead of the common baldcypress and bluegum eucalyptus.

Otherwise, the list of megatrees stayed the same except that the newly remeasured bigleaf maple grew 116 points, allowing it to join the megatree club. Its 659 points ties it with the champion sugar pine for 11th biggest honors. The trunk of the biggest bigleaf maple, which stands by a country road near Jewel, Oregon, is nearly three feet thicker than it was in 1995.

Other remeasured champions have also shown impressive growth. In 1986, when the champion short-leaf fig of Lignumvitae Key, Florida, was last measured, it ranked as the 183rd biggest champion tree with 303 points and a diameter of 6.5 feet. This year it leapt to number 31 after a gain of 208 points, mostly from an increase in diameter of more than 5 feet. The fastest growth spurt by a big champion was made by a black walnut that has been taking advantage of the Oregon weather, far from its native range in the East. It moved up from number 62 to 16, gained 143 points, and increased its diameter from 7.3 to 11.6 feet in the last 16 years. That's an average increase in trunk thickness of 3.2 inches per year.

In the competition among states for most champs within its borders, Florida has long held a commanding lead. The Sunshine State has been bolstered by its having so many subtropical species not found in any other state. But in the last two years Florida lost 91 champs while adding only 17, thereby reducing its tally from 160 to 86. Three quarters of the losses were deaths, most of which were discovered in the attempt to remeasure them for the 10-year rule. Meanwhile, Arizona, which was number three, had the biggest net gain of 12 champs, which gave it a total of 94 and moved it ahead of Florida to first place. California had a net loss of 19 champs--15 from the 10-year rule--and dropped from second to third place.

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The 10-year rule was also the reason for 20 of the 22 titles lost in Oregon and 25 of the 39 Michigan lost. Likewise, Hawaii lost all six of its titles and Rhode Island its only one. All these states went into the nominating process with a high proportion of champions whose measurements were more than 10 years old. But longtime big tree hunters Byron Carmean and Gary Williamson showed that that was no excuse. Their 18 new champions, plus a lot of remeasuring, gave Virginia a net gain of one, in spite of the fact that 38 old titles had been threatened by the 10-year rule.

This year's crop of 219 new champions is distributed among 32 states. Virginia had the most with 37, followed by Arizona (26), Texas (21), Georgia (18), and Florida (17). Three states without a champ in 2006 returned to the Register this year. Massachusetts claimed the biggest sugar maple with a 368-point specimen in Charlemont. Not to be left behind, Arkansas now boasts the biggest common persimmon (265 points) and the biggest shortleaf pine (261 points).

But the standout was Kansas where seven different nominators located the biggest paper birch, narrowleaf cottonwood, Washington hawthorn, dwarf chinkapin oak, western soapberry, little walnut, and two co-champion oriental arborvitae. Delaware, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wyoming remain champ-less, joined this year by Hawaii and Rhode Island.