Four sessile oaks stand together in the Forêt de Réno-Valdieu, near Senonches, each named for a foreign forestry institution: Oxford, Aberdeen, the British Forestry Commission and a Congress ONF's own panels call the tenth. Two carry their own on-site ONF panels dating them at about 380 years, with a measured girth and height each; the other two are known only as part of the wider grove, put at 200 to 350 years. Two survived the December 1999 storm that flattened the stand around them.
0 / 4 visités à Réno-Valdieu
Photo : Le Passant (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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Chêne de la Forestry Commission
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) · about 380 years (ONF's own on-site panel dated it 360 in 2006) · Forêt de Réno-Valdieu
Somebody in this French state forest named an oak after the British Forestry Commission. Three of its neighbours carry the names of the University of Oxford, the University of Aberdeen and a world forestry congress, all four standing in the same grove: the série artistique de la Gautrie, a stand set aside for how it looks rather than for what it would cut into. The grove's age is argued over in general terms: France's national forest office describes the artistic series as oaks and beeches of around 350 years, designated for their beauty in the reign of Louis XIV, while a local survey of the same four named trees puts the série at 200 to 300. This particular oak carries better evidence than that spread suggests. ONF's own on-site interpretive panel, photographed and dated 2010, gives this specific tree 360 years as measured in 2006, a girth of 3.83 metres at chest height and a total height of 43 metres, roughly 380 years today. The character of the place is not in doubt either way. Gautrie is a cathedral stand: sessile oak grown tall and clean, which is the shape foresters travel to see and presumably the reason these dedications landed here at all. The GR22 long distance path crosses the forest, and the 10.5 kilometre loop the Perche signs as Les vieux arbres, the old trees, comes through the grove by way of the Carrefour Degraine. Our pin is that crossroads rather than the trunk.
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Photo : Le Passant (CC BY-SA 3.0)
2
Chêne d'Oxford
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) · about 380 years (ONF's own on-site panel dated it 360 in 2006) · Forêt de Réno-Valdieu
The storms of December 1999 took down the tall stand around this oak and left it standing. The waymarked route through the forest names it and one neighbour, the Congrès oak, as the survivors of the grande futaie, the high forest that used to fill this corner of the Gautrie. Everything that made those two remarkable before the storm is still true, and now they are also the last of their cohort. The name came from further off. This is the Chêne d'Oxford, dedicated to the university, one of four oaks in the série artistique de la Gautrie carrying the names of foreign institutions: Oxford, Aberdeen, the British Forestry Commission and a world forestry congress. The grove was set aside for its looks rather than its timber, and France's national forest office traces that designation to the reign of Louis XIV. This tree's own on-site ONF panel, photographed in 2010, is more specific than the série-wide figures: 360 years as measured in 2006, a girth of 3.43 metres and a total height of 43 metres, putting it at roughly 380 years today. It is the easiest of the four to reach. It stands at the Carrefour Degraine itself, which has picnic tables and the forest office's information panels, directly on the 10.5 kilometre Les vieux arbres loop.
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3
Chêne d'Aberdeen
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) · roughly 200 to 350 years (sources disagree) · Forêt de Réno-Valdieu
Two oaks in this grove were dedicated to universities, one to Oxford and one to Aberdeen, and this is the Scottish one. That sentence is close to everything anyone has written down about it. The evidence here is thinner than for its neighbours, and it is worth saying so plainly. A single local website records the dedication and carries a photograph captioned Chêne d'Aberdeen. No second source names the tree, no register gives it a girth or a height, and there is no photograph of it on Wikimedia Commons. What is solidly documented is the grove around it. The série artistique de la Gautrie, in the state forest of Réno-Valdieu, is a stand of sessile oak and beech set aside for how it looks, which France's national forest office says was designated in the reign of Louis XIV and puts at around 350 years; the same local survey that names this oak says 200 to 300 for the series. So: an oak of somewhere between 200 and 350 years, in a grove that is certainly old, with a Scottish name nobody has explained. That last part is the open question, and it is a good one. No source we can find records who made these four dedications, or when, or why a forest in the Orne settled on Aberdeen, Oxford, the British Forestry Commission and a forestry congress. If you know, or if you stand in front of this oak and photograph it, tell us.
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4
Chêne du Xe Congrès Forestier
Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea) · roughly 200 to 350 years (sources disagree) · Forêt de Réno-Valdieu
Nobody agrees which forestry congress this oak commemorates. The waymarked route through the forest calls it the Chêne du XIe Congrès, the eleventh. ONF's own on-site panels, photographed at two of this grove's other three trees, both describe the série in the same wording and both call it the Xème, the tenth; since ONF wrote the panels, that is the name we lead with, though the discrepancy is worth knowing before you look for a number on the ground. What it did is better recorded than what it is called. The December 1999 storms took down the high forest around this corner of the Gautrie, and this oak and the Oxford oak are the two that were left, which is why the route describes them as survivors of the grande futaie. Both belong to the série artistique de la Gautrie, four oaks carrying dedications to foreign institutions in a grove France's national forest office says was set aside for its beauty under Louis XIV. The age is a band rather than a number for this trunk: two neighbours carry their own ONF panels giving 360 years in 2006, roughly 380 today, but no panel for this one has turned up, so read it as 200 to 350 years until somebody photographs its plaque. Both trees stand at the crossroads, with picnic tables and forest office panels, on the 10.5 kilometre Les vieux arbres loop.
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