This pin oak's crown spreads about 26 metres one way and 22 the other, on a tree only 29 metres tall.
Pin Oak
Quercus palustris
Pin oak is a North American swamp species, native to wet bottomland from the Great Lakes down through the Mississippi valley, that reached European gardens at the start of the nineteenth century and became a Dutch park favourite decades later. We map 5 of them, in 5 cities.
The oldest here is an 1840s planting in Haarlem's Frederikspark; Apeldoorn's in the Oranjepark dates from the 1860s, Eindhoven's at Prinsenhof from around 1900, and Sittard's in the Stadspark from around 1910. It is easy to place once you have seen one. The lower branches sweep down toward the grass while the upper ones reach up, and the leaves are cut into narrow, bristle-tipped lobes far sharper than any native oak's. The name comes from the small pin-like stubs of dead branchlets along the trunk. It holds its scarlet October colour and its dead leaves well into winter, often the last oak in a park still dressed.
Chicago
Eindhoven
Autumn colour
The tightest date on any tree in this Eindhoven cluster comes from a disagreement of exactly ten years.
Apeldoorn
Autumn colour
A pin oak of this age is unusual in the Netherlands, because the species did not become a standard street and park tree here until well into the twentieth century.
Haarlem
Autumn colour
Pin oak reached European gardens at the start of the nineteenth century, which means this one, if the register's dating holds, belongs to the first generation planted here.
Wilmington, Delaware
Autumn colour
Most pin oaks people know are street trees, planted in rows and kept slim.
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