Shoshana Wasserman, Nathan Hart and Amy Weaver stand under a burr oak tree estimated to be 200 years old located south of the Oklahoma River east of Eastern in Oklahoma City. By PAUL B. SOUTHERLAND, The Oklahoman
Centennial Witness Tree project
The Oklahoma Forestry Services and the Tree Bank Foundation staff are still accepting nominations for the Centennial Witness Tree Project. If you want more information about it, or think a tree should be added to the registry, fill out a nomination form at www.forestry.ok.gov/centennial-tree-program.
Oklahoma, raised on a wide prairie, isn't known for its trees.
Perhaps that's a reason why Oklahomans keep an attachment to whatever puts down roots and provides shelter and sustenance in their surroundings. Mark Bays, forester with the state Department of Agriculture, said "Trees were few and far between out here” when the first settlers arrived, but those available provided wood for homes and fires. "Pioneers had a deep respect for trees,” he said.
The Oklahoma Forestry Services and the Tree Bank Foundation joined in 2007 to launch a Centennial project. They determined to find and register trees that were growing in 1907, the year Oklahoma became a state. Landowners and nature lovers across the state nominated about 500 specific trees for the Centennial Witness Tree project.
Some are on private property, in urban yards or on farms and ranches; others grow on common ground, in parks or dotting the open prairies. Species and sizes vary. But most have anecdotes and family history.
Some are famous.
Tulsa has the Hanging Tree and Council Oak, both landmarks in Indian tribal history. The Whipping Tree in Wewoka was a disciplinary site for the Seminoles. Garfield County is known for a wedding tree, where folks traveled across a county line to marry legally. During the land run for the Cherokee Strip in 1893, claims were marked according to trees' locations. Planting a tree, in fact, met part of the homestead improvement requirements, so many settlers and land run participants brought seedlings and cuttings in their wagons when they traveled to Oklahoma.
On the south side of the state Capitol, Bays said, grows a direct descendant of a tree that sheltered George Washington while he took control of the Revolutionary troops in the 1700s. A Daughters of the American Revolution chapter planted it here in the 1930s.
Osage orange trees have been registered as centenarians. Also known in Oklahoma as bois d'arc or hedge apple trees, they were favored wood for Indian bows. The Cross Timbers — a huge stand of post oak and blackjack oak — grew so thick down the center of the state, settlers and later cattle drivers couldn't pass through.
Bays said some unexpected species have been nominated, but Oklahoma, as anticipated, has both native oaks and some immigrant varieties like scrub oak, pin oak, post oak, bur and blackjack, water and Shumard. Cottonwood and cedar and sycamore have grown here for 100 of years, Nut trees — hickory and pecan and walnut have stood for a century beside mulberries trees and maples. American and Chinese elms are common, but the most famous elm in Oklahoma may be the Survivor Tree at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. Bays estimated its age between 75 and 100 years.
Some are huge, having sent down roots in one place for a century. Bays said, though, that the health of a tree, the condition of the soil, the amount of rainfall and what wildlife grazed around the tree contribute to its size, whatever its age. A more accurate estimate can be taken by boring out a core sample and counting the rings.
On the construction site of the
