The Ward Parkway Texas Red Oak

Its trunk is nearly two metres thick, and it grows on a strip of municipal grass beside a residential parkway. The Texas Red Oak on Ward Parkway measures 622 centimetres round, recorded by the Texas Big Tree Registry in July 2026, and the DFW National Champion Tree Trail lists it as stop two on a route of national title holders. That size is the whole point. Texas red oak is a tree of limestone hills and canyon rims, a well shaped and fairly modest oak that people plant for its autumn colour rather than for bulk, and this one has grown to a girth the species is not supposed to reach. It did it in plain sight, in south Fort Worth between TCU and the Colonial Country Club, with no fence around it, no ticket, no visitor centre and nothing on the ground to tell you what you are standing under. The land is city owned and open in park hours. Traffic goes by four metres away. Nobody has dated it. There is no ring count, no planting record and no growth figure for the species we would trust enough to work backwards from, so the age stays an open question rather than a number we made up. If you have seen one published, send it to us. The tape measure is the fact that holds, and at 622 centimetres it does not need any help.