4/14/24

you must pay to enter and walk through the whole of a privately owned plant zoo to access the fenced-off sacred tree. the Signature Oak is likely oregon’s oldest white oak tree at roughly 400 years old. impossible to either view or photograph in its entirety, it is far wider than it is tall, with octopus-like limbs that reach down to the soil, travel along the ground away from the trunk, and spring up again several paces later, giving the impression that the solitary tree is ringed by fresh saplings. some branches have broken or split from their own weight but still hang in place, bearing a new skin of mushrooms as they rot where they once grew. a woodpecker enters its nest at the lower tip of one such dangling arm. to walk from one end of the tree to the other takes several minutes of careful maneuvering under, over, and through a tangled maze of branches. for the newt that journeys stealthily through the leaf litter, the trip is much longer. clouds of mistletoe sit high in the canopy, as they seem to on all the mature oaks in the area. there is a separate field across the parking lot filled with oak trees nearly as old as this one, but they are not The Oldest, and their understory has been taken over by an impenetrable mat of blackberry, ivy allowed to climb their wide trunks. this field is fenced off as well: help is prohibited. there will be no more ancient oaks.

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