Elmwood Cemetery Martyr's tree

Tree #80 American persimmon

In fall of 1878 yellow fever struck down the sisters of St. Mary's as they stayed in Memphis to care for orphaned children. They are buried at Elmwood Cemetery in the form of a cross with four graves radiating from a central stone. Next to this site there is this persimmon tree.

The flowers on this tree are still green with the central button leading the formation of the persimmon fruit.

Persimmon flower May 25, 2014

A small crew of 5-6 cleaned the graves and planted flowers for a photo shoot, May 25, 2014

The Martyr's of Memphis graves are to the left and behind the tree. We pulled grass out of the mulch, raked and planted impatiens. The ladder was for the photographer.

 You may notice the tree trunk is wet. Yes it rained on us as we finished our work on the graves. We had to wait out a downpour in our cars for about 30 minutes.

Tree # 81 Atlas cedar

To the west across one of the many roads in the cemetery there is an Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica). This tree is at the site of Marcia Wunderlich's family plot. Marcia was one of the cleaning crew who picked out the impatiens on this trip and helped plant them. 

Atlas cedar May, 25, 2014

One day Marcia may be resting under that cedar, not far from the Martyr's graves she helped to beautify. This tree is one of two championship trees at Elmwood. According to the TN Dept. of Agriculture "A tree earns points based on its circumference, height and crown spread." The other champion is a fringe tree. I will try to add that later. There are 263 native or common trees in TN that are champion trees. Looking at this list I see the champion Atlas cedar is listed in Knox county at the Baptist Student Center. Maybe Elmwood lost that honor to the other side of the state, but the published list is from 2003. I was not able to find a newer list.