This is the tree people in Navarra mean when they say the big oak. It stands at Orkin, in the Ultzama valley north of Pamplona, and it is habitually described as millenary, which is a reputation built on its size rather than any measurement: Navarra's register gives it a species, a place, a declaration year and a coordinate and nothing else, so nobody has published a girth, a height or an age for it. What is described consistently is the shape. It has been pollarded, cut back repeatedly over generations in the way Basque and Navarrese villages managed their oaks for firewood and charcoal, and the result is a broad rounded crown on a trunk that flares at the base into a mass of roots big enough that animals den in the gaps under them. Ultzama is wet Atlantic country, beech and oak and pasture rather than anything Mediterranean, 20 kilometres and a different climate from Pamplona. Navarra declared it a Natural Monument in 2009. If anybody has put a tape round it, we would like the number.
In fruit
September to October: acorns drop, and a good mast year buries the ground in them
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Arraitz-Orkin, Ultzama valley, 31797 NavarraYou can recognise it by its broad, rounded, pollarded crown and a base flaring into a mass of roots big enough for animals to den in. It stands at Orkin, in the Ultzama valley.
Free, on village common ground in the Ultzama valley
Arraitz-Orkin, about 19 km north of Pamplona, then a short walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.