The Old Cork Tree That's Gone.

Yesterday, I went to visit an old friend, the Manchurian Cork Oak that lived in the  Arnold Arboretum.  To my dismay, I learned that it had had to be taken down; the tree I photographed was, in fact, one of its sisters.  The sad tale is here.  The news sent me burrowing into my archives to find these photographs taken in July, 1986, and scan the negatives.  They show the magnificent old tree, and the huge, horizontal limb which proved to be its undoing.  The first Extra shows why:  the tree was irresistible to little kids who wanted to climb it.  The second Extra gives some sense of how that tree stood out in the great park that is the Arboretum.