600+ Year Old White Oak

Hi Oldtown,

A 600+ year old white oak would indeed be an incredible tree. But it would also be extraordinarily rare, and probably would be known to the scientific community, especially if it is in a public area. Please forgive my skepticism, but I'm dubious about its age. While your pictures show a tree that is fabulous!, more information would be helpful.

According to Bob Leverett, Executive Director of the Native Tree Society and one of the foremost experts on superlative trees in the United States, the oldest known white oak is on Thunder Ridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. Bob says it was cored and confirmed by Dr. Neil Pederson; at the time of coring, it was 564 years old or thereabout. Unfortunately, I don't know (and Bob didn't say) when it was cored, but Dr. Pederson is an established expert on old-growth trees.

So--Would you please tell us how you know that "your" tree is that old? Has someone cored it? If so, who? Or is the 600+ someone's calculation based on a general diameter to age conversion? Or is it a guess?

Inquiring minds want to know! Thanks.

patty j.

Hello all,

Apparently, Bob Leverett sent my inquiry about this tree to his friend Neil Pederson, who wrote me the following response last night.

Hi Patty,

That is a pretty cool tree, but I doubt it is 600 year old. Briefly, we’ve cored many, many white oak and have not made it to 600 years yet. Some were hollow and it could make it that long, but there has been no solid evidence of it. But, judging from the structure of the tree, all that crown intercepts a lot of energy from the Sun. If 1/2 of a tree is below ground, then the root system is equally massive. Sopping up that much nutrients, water, and Sunlight makes, often, for a fast-growing tree. That tree could have been suppressed for a long time and then released and be a few centuries old. It happened on the Inner Bluegrass of KY. The likelihood of that is small, I would guess.

neil

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Neil Pederson
Harvard Forest
Harvard University
324 North Main St.
Petersham, MA 01366

http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu
978.756.6141
http://broadleafpapers.wordpress.com/
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Oh well. Not a 600+ year old tree, no doubt, but a really beautiful one. I hope Matt will be able to measure it one of these days.

patty