Villamudria is a small village of the municipality of Rabanos in the province of Burgos, on the north slope of the Sierra de la Demanda. Its tree stands half a kilometre out along a farm track, entirely alone on an open meadow. The Roble Escarcio is a Pyrenean oak of about 600 years with a trunk close to seven metres round, and nobody has explained why it was spared when the land around it was cleared.
0 of 1 visited in Villamudria
1
Roble Escarcio
Pyrenean Oak (Quercus pyrenaica) · roughly 600 years · Villamudria, a hamlet of the municipality of Rabanos, Burgos
Nobody knows why this oak was left standing. The Roble Escarcio grows alone in an open, treeless meadow on the ridge facing Villamudria, on land that was most likely farmed or grazed until fairly recently, and even a published book on the singular trees of Burgos could not explain why this one Pyrenean oak survived when everything else was cleared.
It survived well. Both of the local writers who have described it put it at about 600 years old, and it is close to seven metres round, a figure its sources give anywhere from 7 to a little over 7.7 metres depending on who held the tape. That is a very big trunk for any oak. It sits on the Junta de Castilla y Leon's list of protected trees.
Its hollow trunk opens wide enough to look into, and people have used it for a long time. Villagers took its shade in summer and gathered its big acorns. Shepherds sheltered inside the trunk and, by one account, lit fires in it and used it as a chimney, which the hiker who recorded that called not very encouraging for its future.
It is still here. From the village, the farm track runs about 500 metres west, and the correct branch at its only fork leads straight to it.
Read more and get directions →