04/16/2025
Is any of God’s creations nobler than the oak tree?
Its majestic boughs inspired the pens of Wordsworth and Whitman and the brushes of Monet and Corot. Its wood has kept Old Ironsides afloat and has aged our whiskey and wine. Its finest specimens, living hundreds of years, witnessed history: The Emancipation Oak. The Charter Oak. The Royal Oak. The Wye Oak. The Mercer Oak. Abraham Lincoln navigated by the Salt River Ford Oak. Andrew Jackson sheltered under the Sunnybrook Oaks on his way to the Battle of New Orleans.
The oak is the king of trees, as naturalist Donald Peattie noted 75 years ago in his magisterial guide to North American trees. Its timber framed our homes. Its leaves, acorns and shade still sustain more life — fungal, entomic, avian, mammalian, human — than any other North American tree. -Dana Milbank. And I could not agree more.
