The Banks Place Willow Oak

Every other tree in this small Ward 7 park is a sapling, and the one that is not is the largest willow oak in the city's inventory of park trees. It stands across the road from 6112 Banks Place NE, in far northeast Washington, near the Maryland line. The city's arborists measure its trunk at about 171 centimetres across at chest height, roughly 5.4 metres round. Laser survey fields in the record give it a crown about 27 metres tall spreading over some 527 square metres, a crown that has had the open ground to itself. Around it, the inventory lists young honeylocusts, horse chestnuts and a hackberry, all of them a few centimetres thick. A second, smaller willow oak, about 136 centimetres across, grows some 200 metres east along the same street. It is not the biggest willow oak in Washington. The one in the National Arboretum, on federal ground the city's inventory does not cover, is larger again. But no willow oak the city lists on its own park ground comes close. At its last inspection, in July 2025, it was rated Good, with deadwood pruned out. Willow oaks grow fast, which is why a trunk this wide need not be very old. The city's record gives no planting date, and nobody has dated the tree. If you know the history of this park, tell us.