The Tamosaiciai Cemetery Oak

The thickest oak in Tamosaiciai is not the Tamosaiciai oak. The name belongs to a tree in the old village cemetery, 4.3 metres round and 23 metres tall, which both records of it describe as in complete health, and which both call the real one. The bigger tree stands out in a field a short walk away and measures 5.8 metres or 6.15 depending on which survey you take. It is also in trouble: storm damage, a large hollow, no information sign, and no place in the register of protected objects. Size is not the whole argument, and in Tamosaiciai the village and the register have both come down on the side of the healthy tree. So the cemetery oak carries the name. It grows among the graves on the right bank of the Kernusupis stream, about a kilometre southeast of the Balskai dam, inside Pagramantis Regional Park. Burial ground tends to be left alone for centuries at a time, which is why so many of the oldest trees in this part of Europe are standing in it. Nobody has dated this one. There is no ring count and no planting record, and the two sources that measured it agree on the girth and the height to the centimetre while saying nothing at all about its age. If you know of a figure with a source behind it, tell us.