The Idaho Champion Bur Oak of Julia Davis Park

Idaho's biggest bur oak is a tree that does not grow wild anywhere near Idaho. The species belongs to the prairies and river bottoms of the American Midwest, a thousand miles east. This one stands in Julia Davis Park in central Boise, and the University of Idaho's Big Tree Program, which keeps the state's official champion list, puts it at the top for its kind. The measurements are 169 inches around the trunk, 429 centimetres, 54 inches through, and 105 feet tall. The height is the part worth pausing on. Bur oak on open ground is a spreading, heavy-limbed tree that puts its effort sideways, and thirty-two metres is tall for one. Nobody has dated it. Champion registers record size rather than age, and bur oaks grow slowly enough that a girth figure alone will not settle the question, so this page carries no number instead of a flattering one. If you know when it went in, tell us. It was nominated for the state list in 2008 and measured for the register's January 2014 edition, the most recent published figure we could find. The park around it also holds Zoo Boise, the Boise Art Museum and the Idaho State Historical Museum, so most people crossing it are on their way somewhere, walking past the largest tree of its species in the state.