Portland's heritage register measured this oak's trunk at exactly the size of the one 120 metres south of it: 70 inches through, 18.3 feet round. The two were entered one after the other in 1998, as heritage trees 175 and 176. This is number 176, on the north side of Powell Park in Brooklyn, and it is the taller of the pair at 102 feet, about 31 metres. Its crown is 106 feet across, still wider than the tree is tall, though less extravagantly than its partner's. Side by side on paper they look like twins. On the ground they stand on opposite sides of a city park, which is the easiest way to tell them apart. It is a northern red oak, a species of the eastern half of the continent, and in October the crown turns a deep red. The Lone Fir and its incense cedar, in the cemetery a little over two kilometres north, make the nearest other heritage trees on this page. Nobody has dated either oak, and we have no recent photograph of this one, so its standing rests on the register, which has never marked it removed. If you walk through, check both sides. And if you know when they were planted, which would tell us whether they went in together, tell us that too.
yellow-green catkins hang as the leaves openacorns that took two summers to ripen drop in early Octobera rich red, sometimes fading to brown
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.
Powell Park, north side, between SE 23rd and 24th Ave, SE Powell Blvd You can recognise it as the taller and narrower of Powell Park's two big red oaks, about 31 metres tall on a trunk 5.58 metres round. It stands on the north side of the park, about 120 metres from its partner.
Free. Public city park (Portland Parks & Recreation, Powell Park).
TriMet bus on SE Powell Blvd; exact stop not verified.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
- portland-heritage-trees (objectid 273, treeid 176)