The North Oak of the Warande

Pedunculate means stalked, and the stalk belongs to the acorn rather than to the tree. That is the whole trick for telling this oak apart from the sessile oak it is usually confused with. Quercus robur hangs its acorns out on long stems and sits its leaves almost directly on the twig; the other one does exactly the reverse. This is the northern of the two oaks in the Warande that carry an entry of their own in the Dutch national register, about 470 metres from the other. Both are dated to the 1850s, both are described as survivors of the mid nineteenth century replanting of the park, and both are marked in the register as standing inside the wood rather than beside a path, which is a polite way of saying you will have to go and find them. The park is much older than either. It took its present form in 1757, and the oldest plantings still standing date from 1834. Oak took over from there and never handed the ground back: it is still the dominant species here, still arranged in the straight lanes a nineteenth century designer would have drawn. Neither oak has ever been measured. No girth, no height, no record of who put them in. If you get a tape around this one, we would like the number.