Middleton Oak Tree Photograph
While I was staying at the Middleton Plantation I fell in love with thos old live Oak Tree. The trees got a lot of sole.
Middleton Oak tree
The Middleton Oak is a tree with a trunk that is fat, at 10.44 foot diameter, and relatively short, at 67 feet. However it has a massive canopy , with several branches many feet in diameter, extending outward to form a broad low crown. … It also has a broad crown, but its crown is made of much smaller branches.
The largest measured Southern Live Oak, named the “Middleton Oak”, grows in Middleton, South Carolina. In 2004, when the Middleton Oak was measured, the tree had a total wood volume of roughly 4,820 cubic feet (roughly 136 m³)[3] and was the largest tree in eastern part of the U.S. Until 2012 this tree was only surpassed by “The Senator”, a bald cypress tree in Florida.
For comparison: according to the Dutch Oak specialist Jeroen Philippona, the largest (volumewise) European tree is an English Oak (Quercus robur) in Ivenack, Germany[4] and has an estimated wood volume of about 140 m³.
However, beginning 2008, the tree lost a large part of its crown, heavily reducing its total wood volume[5]. On the left you can see the Middleton Oak as it was before 2008 (photo by Louis Dallara). Notice the trunk to appreciate the size of this striking beauty.
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