What is the oldest tree in Réno-Valdieu?
Two of the four oaks in the Forêt de Réno-Valdieu carry a documented age of their own. ONF's own on-site panels for the Chêne d'Oxford and the Chêne de la Forestry Commission both give 360 years as measured in 2006, roughly 380 today, plus a girth of 3.43 and 3.83 metres and a height of 43 metres each. The other two, dedicated to Aberdeen and to a forestry congress ONF's own panels call the tenth, are dated only as part of the wider série artistique de la Gautrie: France's national forest office puts the grove at around 350 years, a local survey at 200 to 300. Two of the four, the Oxford and Congrès oaks, are recorded as the survivors of a taller stand the December 1999 storms brought down around them. All stand at or near the Carrefour Degraine.
All four oaks stand at or near the Carrefour Degraine, a crossroads with picnic tables and forest office information panels, on the 10.5 kilometre Les Vieux Arbres loop the Parc naturel régional du Perche waymarks through the forest. The GR22 long distance path crosses the same ground. The Oxford and Forestry Commission oaks each carry an on-site ONF panel giving their own age, girth and height; the Aberdeen and Congrès oaks carry only the grove's collective figures, and Aberdeen is documented by a single photograph and nothing else. Two of the oaks, dedicated to Oxford and to the forestry congress, are named on-site as survivors of a taller stand the December 1999 storms brought down around them. No source records which physical trunk carries which dedication beyond what the panels at the crossroads say, so read them there rather than here. The grove sits some thirty kilometres from the Senonches walk, inside the same regional park, reached by car; there is no public transport to the forest interior, and the nearest towns are Feings and Saint-Mard-de-Réno.
One of Réno-Valdieu's trees also appears in The Tallest Trees We Have Measured, a themed collection spanning several cities.