The ancient olive tree that stands in front of Sproul Hall on the southeast corner of the UC Davis campus caught the eye of Dr. Richard Plant.
A professor for 44 years at UCD, Dr. Plant nominated this tree because it’s spiraling trunk and gnarled branches reflect the vicissitudes of over 150 years of life.
This olive is 60–ft tall and its girth is 8.7 feet. It is one of several trees that remain from the Jerome C. and Mary Chiles Davis homestead. A nearby plaque notes that these olive and fig trees are relics from the prize winning farm of the 1850s. In 1867, after the Davis’s retired from farming, the homestead became Davis’s first hotel, the Yolo House. A portion of the farm became University Farm in 1906, and later UC Davis.