The Dawn Redwood tree on the Cathedral Lawn, behind the Log Cabin by the Cathedral and pictured above, was thought to be an extinct species until rediscovered in China in the 1940s. Pitt's tree was planted circa 1950s and remains critically endangered in the wild. They are the only deciduous conifers.
The oldest tree is a 100-foot-tall northern Red Oak near Heinz Chapel that’s approximately 210 years old, so circa 1813, when Pitt was still the Pittsburgh Academy.
A Scarlet Oak, located on the northwest corner of the Cathedral Lawn near the corner of 5th and Bellefield, is estimated to have been planted in 1830, the same year Pitt had moved into its new stately building located on Third St between Smithfield and Cherry downtown and was called the Western University of Pennsylvania (see painting below).
There are 17 different tree species on the Cathedral Lawn. Who knew?
Pitt Tree Trek here: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/campus-culture/tree-trek/
See also story here: http://www.utimes.pitt.edu/news/campus-tree-trek
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