Monday, May 03, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

UPDATE: Cat claw acacia tree thriving after being spared by developer

This cat claw acacia tree at the corner of Pearl Street and Oquendo Road was spared by an apartment complex developer after arborists discovered it was 120 years old. Photo by John Gurzinski.

A massive tree in the southeastern valley that was saved last year from being torn down by an apartment complex developer is thriving, local experts said last week.

"It's going to have a long, healthy life," said Jack Zunino of JW Zunino & Associates, the architect who designed the landscaping outside the apartment complex. "It'll live longer than you and I put together."

The tree, a 35-foot-tall cat claw acacia, sits on what was long an empty lot on the corner of Pearl Street and Oquendo Road, near Russel and Pecos roads.

When Oregon developer GSL Properties Inc. proposed a senior living apartment complex for the area, the tree was slated to come down.

Suzanne Lucas, who has lived next door to the tree for 15 years, mounted a campaign to stop the tree's destruction.

She called in local arborist Norm Schilling of the Schilling Horticulture Group. He figured out that the tree was likely the largest of its species in the world.

Not only that, but the tree was 120 years old, which is a rarity in this area because of rapid development.

Schilling contacted the Nevada Division of Forestry's Lisa Calderwood, who nominated the tree for the division's Big Tree Program. The program recognizes the largest tree of each species in the state as a public awareness effort.

Cat claw acacias are common throughout the area, but they usually resemble shrubs or bushes. They rarely grow more than 8 feet tall.

Armed with the Big Tree nomination, Calderwood contacted Zunino, the developer's landscaper. He had no idea then that the tree was so special. When he found out, he said, he easily persuaded the developer to spare the tree.

Zunino incorporated the tree into the landscaping plans, and the complex was built around it. The buildings have been finished, and workers were painting them last week.

Schilling said he was called out to the site once to prune the tree when a couple of branches were in danger of hitting the building.

It is in danger no more, and Zunino said there is a lesson in that.

"The fact that it was saved, it was just neat," he said. "And that's something we need to think about more, especially as we move development on up into the foothills."

RICHARD LAKE

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