The Pin Oak of Frederikspark

Pin oak reached European gardens at the start of the nineteenth century, which means this one, if the register's dating holds, belongs to the first generation planted here. The band is 1840 to 1850, so roughly 180 to 190 years old, and it stands along the path in the middle of the north side of the Frederikspark. Quercus palustris is easy once you have seen one. The lower branches sweep down toward the ground instead of reaching for the light, the leaves are cut into deep narrow lobes with bristle tips, and the crown keeps a tidy conical outline far longer than any native oak manages. Then in late October it turns scarlet and holds the colour for weeks after the limes and the ashes have given up. The name has nothing to do with the leaves. It comes from the short hard pin-like stubs of dead branchlets left along the trunk and the inner limbs, a habit the species has and most oaks do not. The tree is a swamp oak by origin, from the wet bottomlands of the American Midwest, which is one reason it has done so well in a country built on waterlogged ground. The national register is the only source we have found for it, so read the age band as its estimate. No girth has been published.