(This post is part of my 33 in 3 project.)

This morning I hunted down another Champion Tree in Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum. I believe there are five but I’ve never found them all. This specific sawtooth oak is located near the entrance.

Like the dawn redwood, the sawtooth oak started out in Asia but has naturalized here. The Wikipedia entry on this guy was less detailed and fascinating than the dawn redwood’s… apparently the sawtooth produces heavy acorn crops but has crappy wood. TMYK. 

I still have a lot of work to do in terms of actual identification of the trees. So far there’s little hope I’d be able to find one in the wild, without a label. I’m even more desensitized to my world than I’d even let myself believe!