The Patton Square Red Oak

This oak's crown is wider than the tree is tall. Portland's heritage register gives it a spread of 115 feet against a height of 111, a canopy about 35 metres across on the east side of Patton Square, a small city park in Overlook. The trunk keeps up with the crown: 69 inches through and 5.52 metres round. It is a northern red oak, a species from the eastern half of the continent, and the city designated this one a heritage tree in 2005. The register adds a practical note, that it is fully visible from N Maryland Avenue, so you can take in the whole shape from the pavement before you walk underneath it. The time to come is autumn. Red oaks earn their name in October and into November, when the leaves turn a deep red, sometimes fading to brown, and a crown this broad puts a great deal of that colour over one corner of one park. Overlook's three London planes, on Overlook Boulevard about a kilometre away, make the other half of a neighbourhood walk. What the register does not record is age, because it has no field for one, and nobody else has published a planting date. A photograph taken at the spot in May 2026 shows it still standing. If you know when it went in, tell us.