The Pin Oak of Bellevue State Park

Most pin oaks people know are street trees, planted in rows and kept slim. This one has a trunk 462 centimetres round. The Delaware Forest Service measured it at 29.3 metres tall with a crown averaging 25 metres across, and ranks it second among the pin oaks of the state. We publish four other pin oaks, all in Dutch parks, in Apeldoorn, Haarlem, Eindhoven and Sittard, where the species arrived as an ornamental from North America. None of them carries a measurement on our pages. This is the first pin oak on the site with numbers attached, and it is also the first standing in its native range: pin oak is a tree of the eastern United States, at home in low, damp ground. It grows on the Cauffiel Estate within Bellevue State Park, about six kilometres northeast of downtown Wilmington, outside the city limits. The park is public ground. The register's ranking dates from November 2024, and a dated observation at the spot within the past four years confirms it was alive then. What nobody has recorded is how old it is. The register gives no age and no planting date, and we have found nothing that says whether it predates the estate or was planted for it. If you know, or if you have measured it yourself, tell us. In late autumn, look at the lower branches: pin oaks often hold their dead brown leaves well into winter.