Ask 5-year-olds to draw you a tree and they will unwittingly sketch you a pin oak.
Large and handsome at maturity, the pin oak (Quercus palustris) is perhaps best known for its perfect “tree†shape. When growing in full sun with good soil, it develops a beautiful oval crown of leaves. The most colorful description I have heard is that it is gumdrop-shaped, bearing in mind that this is one big gumdrop; a full-grown pin oak can reach heights of more than 70 feet.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Studying the architecture of the oak’s limbs reveals much about its beautiful symmetry. Pin oaks develop a dense branching pattern. The young tree’s boughs initially point upward at the top of the trunk. But as the tree matures, these first branches begin to splay outward, gradually reaching a 90-degree angle with the trunk. Finally, if the tree reaches a healthy adulthood, the lower branches, which will have continued to elongate and grow their own subbranches, begin to droop. These older branches are frequently still alive and well but now emerge at a more obtuse angle.
In the wild, pin oaks grow well along woodland edges but can also be found in the dense inner forest, where the tree’s canopy may take any number of arresting shapes, reaching out here or there to capitalize on available light. In the city they are an occasional find in the preserved pockets of urban woods that dot all five boroughs and are one of the most abundant trees in man-made environments.
Though sometimes considered too large for the tightly packed residential areas in New York City, pin oaks are still planted as street trees. But they may be at their best shading thousands of hot, tired New York City picnickers, runners, bicyclists, dog walkers, residents and tourists from the sun, while feeding at least as many squirrels and blue jays with their acorns.
Few parks in the city are without at least a few pin oaks, and that is a point worth considering. The tree is particularly well adapted to survive harsh treatment â€" lack of water, intense heat, freezing temperatures, pests of all kinds (from insects to dogs to cars) â€" which has made it one of the city’s most desirable and planted trees.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s Million Trees Initiative, more than 750,000 trees have been planted to date in parks, along busy streets, in abandoned lots and at schools. They extend the acreage of already valuable urban forests and remediate areas compromised by invasive vines and other plants. Pin oaks are neck-in-neck in popularity with a close relative, the red oak, in the program, with more than 30,000 planted.
Indeed, an 11-year-old pin oak was the tree Mr. Bloomberg chose to recognize as the 500,000th tree in the initiative, in an Oct. 18, 2011, ceremony in St. Nicholas Park in Harlem.
Appealing and durable, the pin oak has found a home in the Big Apple.
