Generations of Immaculate Conception School students have watched the ginkgo tree leaves fall

The current batch of leaves of the ginkgo tree at Immaculate Conception School in Morris are due to fall any day now, and the current group of students is another in a long line of students who have played in the leaves, raked the leaves and watched them regrow.

Kim DesLauriers, the school’s director of advancement and alumni who also was the principal for 39 years and a teacher before that, said the ginkgo tree may have been planted before the first church was even built in 1852, but the tree’s exact age is unknown.

“Ginkgo trees can live to be several hundred years old, and they seem to thrive about any place they’re planted in any climate,” DesLauriers said. “They’re very healthy trees, and in the reading I’ve done, they can go back to as far as 1,000 years or more.”

Some ginkgo trees in their native East Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea are thought to be over 1,000 years old, according to an article from Clemson University’s Home and Garden Information Center.

The ginkgo tree is a bit different from the others on the east side of Morris: While trees losing their leaves is typically a long process that goes on well into November, the ginkgo tree loses its leaves all at once. It’s unusual, DesLauriers said, for the ginkgo tree to still have its leaves this late in the year. He believes Thursday’s snow could expedite the process.

The students at Immaculate Conception School have made predictions on when the tree will lose its leaves and some students, with some such as Collin W., Hollis R. and Ella H. guessing between Friday and Sunday, could end up being the winner if DesLauriers’ prediction comes true. As of Friday, there still were too many leaves hanging on to call the tree leafless.

The guessing game has become a tradition for Immaculate Conception School students, one that goes a long way back. DesLauriers said he’s lived in Morris for 44 years, and the tree was large when he moved there. He said he asked a parishioner who was in her 80s and has been at the parish her entire life, and she said the tree is as big now as it was back then.

“It adds a sense of character to the parish,” DesLauriers said. “You know, we have something here that’s that old and still healthy, and so many people have stood beneath that tree. How many kids have passed under it or played or gone to church under that tree, and how many who have brought its leaves inside their homes because they were stuck to their shoe? That’s the beauty of that tree. In a world where we don’t appreciate things as much as we should, I think people appreciate the ginkgo tree.”