The Giving Tree White Oak of Phillips Park

Pittsburgh has a category of remarkable tree called the Giving Tree, awarded for what a tree does for everything else living around it rather than for how big it is. When the city's Shade Tree Commission drew up its first list in March 2023, this white oak in Phillips Park took that title. It is a defensible choice. An oak is the most productive thing most American parks contain: acorns that feed deer, squirrels, jays and woodpeckers through the winter, and caterpillars in numbers no other native tree comes close to, which is what songbirds actually put in front of their chicks. A single mature Quercus alba is less a tree than a food supply with bark on it, and white oaks do this for centuries. Be aware of how thin the record is. Only one document names this tree, the commission's own minutes from 16 March 2023, and the program's public write-ups sit on a site we could not read. There is no published age, no height, no girth, and no second account. Phillips Park is free and open, in Beechview, and the pin will get you into the park rather than to the trunk. So this is the entry that most needs a reader. If you live in Beechview, or you have stood under this oak, tell us which one it is and what it measures.