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A walk through a portion of a 50-acre forest on Montgomery College's Germantown campus where an extension of Observation Drive is planned led to the discovery of what could be the largest American elm tree in the county.

The forest is an important resource for Germantown's 2,400-acre business and Town Center areas, which has a forest cover of 14 percent, well under the 40 percent recommended to maintain healthy watersheds in metropolitan areas by the nonprofit American Forests, according to county planners. And it's an important resource for the school's science teachers, who often take classes into the woods to conduct field work, biology professor Scot Magnotta said.

About 20 people participated in an educational walk last week through a portion of the woods that would be impacted by the proposed Observation Drive extension.

"This is such a joy to have as part of a campus. It's a jewel," said Joe Howard of Silver Spring, a member of the Montgomery County Forestry Board, which advocates for sound forest management practices and conservation, and founder of the county's Champion Tree Program, which recognizes trees that are the largest of their species.

The road extension, planned as a four-lane undivided road, was developed as a compromise between college and county officials in the spring. It would connect Observation to Middlebrook Road and extend Goldenrod Lane to Observation and serve a planned Bioscience Education Center and science and technology park. The college's original proposed alignment would have impacted 18 acres of forest, while the compromise will require 5 acres to be cleared.

Construction on the road extension, currently being designed, is expected to begin over the summer and end in spring 2012, according to Elizabeth Homan, a college spokeswoman. Construction on the Bioscience Education Center is expected to begin in the summer and end in summer 2012, she said.

"I heard about the development that was going to happen and I wanted to get people back here to see the forest before the construction," said walk organizer Aradhana Kamble, 23, of Derwood, a Montgomery College student. "When you're actually in the forest, it's completely different from just hearing that something is going to be cut down."

The college's 224-acre campus used to be a farm, Magnotta said, and much of the forest began growing after the land was no longer used for agriculture. The campus was constructed in the 1970s but parts of the woods existed as far back as the 1950s, he said. Deer have decimated much of the understory in places but the forest is still home to salamanders and a breeding population of ring-necked snakes, he said. Forest edges and grassy clearings support coyotes, foxes and wild turkeys.

"When looking at an environmental plan you can't just look at the trees, you have to look at the habitat and the organisms that live there," he said. "Any ecologist will tell you that diversity is the name of the game."

The group measured a large American elm near where the new road would go that could be a county champion. Potential county champion trees can be nominated at any time, and new championship certificates are awarded in April of odd-numbered years after they are measured by a professional forester.

The tree has a circumference of 228 inches, an average crown spread — the distance the limbs extend out from the tree — of 123 feet and a height of 105 feet at its lowest point, which would give it a score of 364 points, Howard said. The county's champion in Chevy Chase has a score of 351 points and the state champion in Baltimore County has 403 points.

Property owners must receive permission from the Planning Board under the county's forest conservation law to cut down certain trees, including county champions and any tree greater than 30 inches in diameter at breast height. The American elm's diameter at breast height is 72 inches.

"Likely this tree was this big before [the land] became forest. This was probably in someone's backyard," Howard said. "It's not a fast growing tree —this could've been here when the country was founded."