Presbyterian Burr Oaks
Sort of a preface to the posts about Famous Trees of Texas, these oaks got me off my ass and out the door to get this project started.
I was already talking myself out of it.
I loved the idea of this project, but that's all it was…
An idea.
I thought it might be fun to visit the trees in a book I've had on my shelves for years called The Famous Trees of Texas, which was published in 1970, the year I was born. With my 50th birthday approaching, it seemed like a good time to see what these old trees could tell me. In my journal, I wrote more than once that it was something I would love to do.
But I wasn’t doing it.
Inertia and the fear of looking stupid inflicted a strong downward pull. I realized that keeping the idea something of a secret, I never had to begin. Casually, I began mentioning it to friends.
To make it a reality, I had to take action, but I was already looking for a way out of the effort. It was easier to seek inspiration, reading and listening to podcast interviews with authors and other thinkers. One excellent podcast about self publishing literally shouted at me to stop thinking about writing and stop talking about writing and actually write.
A quote I only partially remembered came to mind…
Inspiration is for amateurs.
I wasn’t sure who said it so I looked it up.
“Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work.
If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.
And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’”
Part of my hesitation, my fear, was this nagging question:
What if I suck?
This quote gave me an answer. You probably do suck, amateur. Now stop worrying about that and get to work.
Staring at the map, I saw that visiting the nearest of the famous trees involved driving to Ft. Worth. Perhaps due to the weight of getting started, this felt completely daunting. Scrounging for something easier, I wasted some time online, but then remembered some oaks I had heard about at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. They were saved from construction destruction by an arborist who refused to cut them down. Steve Houser started Arborilogical Services in the mid nineties, around the same time as my boss began his company. Their businesses have collaborated for most of the last two decades.
Our garden manager staff met their team and toured their facility in Wylie, Texas, which is surrounded by water wise gardens full of native perennials and specially chosen trees. The carefully designed building is made with sustainable materials and filled with trophies won in tree climbing contests and mementoes, like the thick slices of tree trunks known as "cookies.”
Steve recounted to us the story of the Presbyterian oaks. He lost his biggest client when he decided against their request to clear the two old burr oaks (Quercus macrocarpa) to make space for a new building.
In protest, he formed the Dallas Historic Tree Coalition (now the Texas Historic Tree Coalition) and took out a two page ad in the Dallas Morning News, noting the irreplaceable benefits of urban forests and explaining the threatened plight of these old trees. His efforts resulted in a redesign which kept a place for the sibling oaks between the new buildings.
To hunt down these trees would be a significantly less challenging excursion. My friend, who works for another arborist company texted me: “Wanna go to the Arboretum?” The idea of a companion bolstered me. “I want you to help me find some trees,” I texted back.
We circled back from the main road behind the first row of buildings and quickly spotted them on the hospital campus. Parking and walking down a driveway near the dumpsters, we observed a huge cooling unit pouring water all along the wall at the top edge of the structure. It felt like maybe we weren't supposed to be wandering around behind the scenes. One friendly, but curious employee eyeballed us, like: what are y’all doing here? He asked if we were taking a tour. Yep.
The feeling of trespassing faded as we neared the patch of earth at the base of the oaks. Walking underneath the canopy near the large trunks, I could immediately feel their energy. This small space between buildings seemed to have a bit more oxygen. The dappled shade provided by their giant leaves almost made the sweaty September day seem cooler.
Alive and well, but tightly wedged between two structures, we noted points where the trees could use strategic pruning to keep from scraping against the buildings. Many good sized lower branches had already been hacked off in favor of those extending upward to the sky. It's interesting to consider the relationship between trees grown closely to each other and to notice the way their branches interact.
The ground was on an incline and at the top of the slope was a sidewalk leading to a cement staircase where we climbed a bit closer to the leaf canopy. Staffers came in and out of the doorway at the top of the stairs, taking little notice of these living things that were saved from the ax.
He mentioned that they might benefit from applications of a growth regulator: Cambistat to inhibit the elongation toward light. That seemed to my organic leaning mind, a bit unnatural, but how much of the stewardship of our urban environment is natural? Though they were saved, they are now at the mercy of more stressful conditions and they no doubt endured hardships during construction.
How much longer will they survive like this?
Was it worth saving them if their lifespan is shortened as a result?
These were the questions we pondered afterward over a drink.
Famous Trees of Texas
A little about the book that started it all.
As my 50th birthday approached in 2020, I decided to start a nerdy, but enjoyable project finding the trees in a book I’ve owned for years, called Famous Trees of Texas. Published in 1970, the year of my birth, this first edition copy is out of print.
Famous Trees of Texas Map (2nd hand ) 1st edition
I love the dated fonts and color quality of the photos in this edition, which I got for $3, as you can barely see penciled in the top right corner. A 3rd edition copy published in March 1984, features a number of updates to the map and the tree list.
A more recent edition was published in 2015 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of Texas Forest Service (now Texas A&M Forest Service), started in 1915.
The Famous Trees of Texas website includes the descriptions written in the original books and provides species information, historical updates, more recent photos and, importantly, Google coordinates. Small tombstone icons indicate the trees which are no longer living. Because I can access it on the go and leave my aging books on the shelf, this site is a major resource for me.
My first post about Famous Trees of Texas is here.
This one is kind of a preface.
List of Living Trees
My list showing which trees I have visited with links to completed posts.
Compiled from my major information resource, the Famous Trees of Texas website, this list serves as a Table of Contents for the site
1. Auction Oaks
2. Baptist Oak
3. Bell County Charter Oak
4. Ben Milam Cypress
5. Bloys Symbolic Oak
6. Borden Oak
7. Burnt Oak (no public access)
8. Burges Oak
9. Battle Oaks
10. Big Tree Ranch Baldcypress (no public access)
11. Cart War Oak
12. Century Tree
13. Choctaw Robinson Oak
14. Church Oak
15. Commissioner's Court Oak
16. Courthouse Cedar (removed in 2019)
17. Cabinet Oak
18. Columbus Live Oak
19. District Court Oak (no public access)
20. Dueling Oak
21. Fleming Oak
22. Founders' Oak
23. Goose Island Oak
24. Goliad Anacua
25. Goodnight-Loving Pecan
26. Half-Way Oak
27. Hallettsville Hanging Tree
28. Hangman's Oak (no public access)
29. Heart O'Texas Oak
30. Hubbard Ginkgo
31. Houston Campsite Oak
32. Jumbo Hollis Pecan (no public access)
33. Kimble Court Oaks (no public access)
34. Kissing Oak
35. Kissing Tree
36. Kyle Auction Oak
37. Kyle Hanging Tree
38. La Bahia Pecan
39. Landmark Cottonwood
40. Las Cuevas Ebony
41. Live Oak County Charter Oak
42. Log Cabin Oaks
43. Liberty Courthouse Oak
44. Masonic Oak
45. Matrimonial Oak
46. Muster Oak
47. Old Evergreen Tree
48. Old Baldy
49. Page's Tree
50. Panna Maria Oaks
51. Peach Point Oaks (no public access)
52. Parker Oaks
53. Ranger Oaks
54. Rio Frio Landmark Oak
55. Ross Oak (no public access)
56. Runaway Scrape Oak
57. Runyon’s Esenbeckia (no public access)
58. Rusk County Loblolly Pine (no public access)
59. San Saba Mother Pecan (no public access)
60. Seiders Oaks
61. Steel's Tavern Oaks
62. —Tombstone Oak
63. Traders Oak
64. Treaty Oak
65. Turner Oak
66. Twin Oaks
67. Tannahill Oak (no public access)
68. Urrea Oaks
69. Whipping Oak
70. Wiemers Oak (no public access)
71. Which Way Tree
72. Zachary Taylor Oak
A dash — before the tree name indicates that I have visited the tree and I’m still working on the write up.
These trees are not “famous,” but still interesting…
Favicon
If you view this site on a laptop or add it to your favorites on your phone, (hint!) you’ll see a little image called a favicon in your favorites list or in your browser tab. The icon is a linocut I created as a fine art printmaking student at the University of North Texas in the 90s.
An obvious choice for this project, the image was originally based on my own 1976 childhood drawing saved by my mother, whose handwriting you can see stating my name, age and the year. When I found my own five year old version of a tree, I immediately wanted to “copy” my style.
While in college, I worked part-time at a preschool/daycare with two and three year olds. I loved all these sweet kiddos and even made lifetime friends with one of the families I met there. Watching these kids draw and paint fascinated me.
Art school, with so many talented students, often nudged me into comparison mode, which works against creativity and fuels self doubt. Seeing the concentration and confidence with which these toddlers made deliberate marks on their paper was revitalizing.
I let go of trying to make realistic, technically perfect drawings and starting embellishing playful doodles with patterns and texture, turning them into finished works.
Finding and recreating my childhood creation brought everything full circle from admiring these self-assured kids to building my self worth. Using it for this project brings new life to a relic from my days as a young artist.
Rainbow
Must we "believe" to appreciate these ephemeral occasions?
On my way to Austin to see Peckerwood and visit friends, I saw a ENORMOUS, beautiful rainbow when I stopped for gas.
This 2015 mobile phone photo does it no justice whatsoever.
A gigantic half circle stretched to nearly touch the ground, with bright colors saturating the precipitating sky and a second partial band alongside it. Thrilled, I leaped from my car to get a better view.
Standing in the light rain, I looked around to see if others had noticed this grand sight and pointed it out to a man walking toward the store.
Rainbow!!
He began shouting, "I don't BELIEVE in rainbows! I do NOT believe in rainbows!"
A perplexing response to say the least. Must we "believe" to appreciate this ephemeral occasion? This individual may or may not have been playing with a full deck, so to speak.
I tried again, pointing it out to a couple other young guys pumping gas.
Did you see the rainbow?!?
I was clearly excited and it really was worth notice. They nodded and kind of smiled. No big deal.
Ok, perhaps I appeared a bit over zealous… or maybe even intoxicated standing in the drizzle taking photos like that sobbing double rainbow guy on youtube. Walking slowly backwards to my car, I passed a man at the next pump by a big red truck.
Did you see? I pointed.
"OHHH THANK YOU," he called out, walking towards the store.
Finally, a proper acknowledgement!
When I finished filling my tank, the fleeting moment was gone. The same man came back out to his truck and said,
"Thank you so much for showing me that rainbow."
You're welcome!
This post was originally published on my first blog on June 14th, 2015