What is the oldest tree in Wye Mills, Maryland?
The tree we map at Wye Mills is a clone, planted 6 June 2006 on the exact spot where the original Wye Oak stood until a thunderstorm destroyed it on 6 June 2002. The original was the largest known white oak in the United States, believed to be over 460 years old and Maryland's official state tree for more than six decades. The clone, grafted from the original before it fell, is free to visit every day in Wye Oak State Park.
Wye Oak State Park is in Wye Mills, Talbot County, Maryland, about 100 km from Washington DC, our nearest published city and too far for a single day-trip pairing. There is no public transit; visitors drive and park at the small state park built around the one tree. The park is open free, daily, during daylight hours. What stands there now is a genetic clone rather than the original trunk: horticulturist Frank Gouin led a University of Maryland effort to graft cuttings from the Wye Oak before disease or storm could take it, partly for its size and age and partly because it resisted oak wilt and gypsy moth better than other white oaks nearby. Two grafts were planted at Mount Vernon six weeks before the original fell; this one went into the ground on the old site itself, on the anniversary of the storm. There is no strong seasonal peak for a tree this young; the reason to visit is the continuity rather than the canopy.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.