Gaurė Oak

Gaurė put this oak on its coat of arms, as the town's symbol of strength. That is a considerable vote of confidence in a tree that is hollow through the middle and has few branches left. It carries the widest trunk on this page by a margin: 7.10 metres round at chest height, against 6.30 for the Gudlaukis Oak. Height 18.5 metres, so for all that girth it is a short, heavy tree rather than a tall one. The trunk is hollowed and thickly grown over with lichen and fungi, and a photograph from 2021 still shows it green. The Lithuanian description of it is vigorous, and looking at the state of the bark, that word is doing real work. It has been protected since 1960, by an order of the Lithuanian nature protection committee of the day, and it is signposted from the road with an information board kept up beside it, which in a village this size says something about local priorities. It stands on the slope edge between the main street and the Įkojis stream, beside an old homestead, about 300 metres from the church. No source gives an age, and a hollow trunk is the hardest kind to date honestly. If a figure exists in the Tauragė forestry records, tell us. Getting there means a car. The park's other four trees are 18 to 19 kilometres off, a separate stop rather than part of the same loop.