This Star Search Hunts for Trees Worthy of Memorial

MILLSTONE TOWNSHIP, N.J., Nov. 17 — From the gently inclined open field
at Back Bone Hill and Stillhouse Roads, ground zero is 38 miles away.
Thirty-eight miles and three years.

This is the field where 380 swamp white oaks and 57 sweetgums — to be
shipped in from nearby states — will be kept and cultivated before
making one more journey in 2009, to the World Trade Center memorial in
Lower Manhattan.

The search for these trees has begun in earnest at nurseries in New
Jersey and in roadside fields in Maryland. (Five sweetgums were
ceremonially tagged last year on Long Island.) On Nov. 9, the World
Trade Center Memorial Foundation selected Environmental Design of
Tomball, Tex., to find, choose, transport, replant and care for the
trees, working with the landscape architects at Peter Walker and
Partners of Berkeley, Calif.