In the Yard, a changing of the guard
For those with an eye to nature, Harvard Yard is home to much more than freshmen. There are living fossils and dying icons. There are locusts and larch, hackberry and holly, Kentucky coffee and catalpas. There are colors in autumn, rebirth in the spring, and shade in the summer. Even amid winter’s winds, rough bark reminds us of the life asleep inside as we scurry past. The trees of Harvard Yard have for centuries shielded student travels. They’ve roofed the Yard and framed its iconic image. All one has to do is imagine the Yard barren and treeless to understand that trees are as much a part of that landscape as its historic buildings and John Harvard’s brass toe. And, like much of the University in this globalized age, the trees of the Yard are changing. The Yard is approaching the end of an era, when elms — once thought the perfect trees for...