The Black Oak of Willow Springs Woods

The champion black oak of the Forest Preserves of Cook County stands 36.6 metres tall, the tallest oak on our Chicago map, on a crown barely 14 metres across. That is the shape to come for. The county measured it on 24 July 2023: a trunk 3.63 metres round, 120 feet of height, and a crown about 14 metres one way and 12.5 the other. Every other measured oak on this page is shorter and spreads wider. The champion pin oak at Rolling Knolls is more than seven metres lower with a crown nearly twice as broad, and the champion white oak at Red Gate Woods, about 3.7 kilometres to the south-west, tops out at 29.3. It is also the first black oak on our map anywhere, and it arrives as the biggest one the county has found on its land, ranked first of its species. Willow Springs Woods pairs it with a neighbour. About 1.8 kilometres to the east-south-east, in Spears Woods, stands the county's second-ranked swamp white oak, measured on the same July day. The two oaks could hardly be built more differently: this one tall and narrow, that one about as wide as it is high. The register is the only source for this tree. It gives size, rank and the date, and no age. Nobody has dated this oak. If you know how old it is, tell us.