A tree is a tree is a tree – unless you know what kind of tree it is.
That’s why the Hightstown Borough Environmental Commission is embarking on a campaign to place a small aluminum tag on each tree in Association Park that explains what kind of tree it is.
Keith LePrevost, who chairs the Environmental Commission, outlined the commission’s plan before Hightstown Borough Council at its Sept. 16 meeting.
The aluminum tag will list the tree’s common name, its Latin name and its species. A red oak tree’s Latin name is quercus rubra, and it is native to North America, for example.
The tag also will have a QR code, so visitors who scan it on their smartphones will be taken directly to a page that offers an explanation and background on the tree.
LePrevost said volunteers will install the tags on all of the trees in Association Park, beginning next month. There are 42 trees in Association Park.
“It’s a project that the Environmental Commission wants to do,” LePrevost said.
“It will be a good thing to do for the town. People use the park, and there will be information about the trees,” he said.
LePrevost said the Environmental Commission would like to prepare a map at the entrance to Association Park, offering a guide to the various trees and their location in the park. There are about 30 species of trees in the park, with very little duplication, he said.
Once the trees are tagged in Association Park, LePrevost said, the Environmental Commission would like to move on and do the same thing at Dawes Park – but that will likely be a project for next year.
Hightstown Borough Councilman Lee Stults said that as a child, he would walk on the trails at the nearby Meadow Lakes continuing care community while visiting family members.
Stults recalled that trees in Meadow Lake were similarly tagged, and he found it to be interesting.