The Peters Hill White Oak

Harvard's Arnold Arboretum has been cataloguing plants since 1872 and did not get round to this one until 2010. It shows up on an 1894 city survey of Peters Hill, already growing wild on ground the Arboretum later absorbed, so when it was finally accessioned it went into the books as found growing in place rather than planted. It may be the oldest tree in the entire landscape. In 2018 a core taken from the southwest stem gave 142 countable rings, with perhaps 60 more lost in a hollow centre, putting germination in the early 1800s. It is double leadered, two stems fused near the base with the seam still visible, roughly 17 metres tall and spreading 28 metres over the crabapple collection below it. A 1927 bird's eye map of the Arboretum drew it as a lone shepherd guarding an endless flock, the flock at the time being hawthorns that have since been replaced. Two honest notes. Everything known about this tree comes from the Arboretum itself, rigorous work with published ring counts, but we found nothing independent of the institution. And no coordinates are published, so the pin is the northeast slope of Peters Hill above the crabapples rather than the trunk. Walk up the slope and look for the widest crown on the hill. At that spread it is not a difficult hunt.