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That Tree: A Year in the Life of a Lonely Oak

Photos by Mark Hirsch | Text by Della Watson

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An October windstorm removed most of the oak's leaves in one sweeping gesture. "Overnight the leaves had just dropped from the tree like someone took a coat off," Hirsch recalls. The bur oak, which a tree expert estimates to be about 163 years old, produces leaves that vary drastically in size and shape. "They run the gamut from skinny petite ones to rugged heavy ones. With the diversity of the leaves, you wonder whether they're from the same tree." But with no other trees nearby, it's safe to assume that all of these leaves did, in fact, fall from the same limbs.


 


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