March 24, 2014 by Rita Bijons

One fine October afternoon in 2012, my dear friend Susan in Ottawa suggested we take a walk in the Arboretum. I had just spent 12 days on Parliament Hill, and really welcomed this reprieve from pavement, cement, buildings and monoculture lawn. We walked among mature trees, and stopped by the occasional felled tree, which had been ravaged by the Emerald Ash Borer. Murmurs hung in the air.

 

Susan mentioned we were heading towards her favourite tree. As we approached, it was hard to comprehend the scale of this magnificent gentle giant. The closer we got, the more it revealed itself, and the more at peace I felt. Huge, embracing arms, crowned with a glory of leaves. To my delight, there was a bench, waiting for us. Time and space were suspended.

 

Oak Tree

 

The words that came to me were a quote from a memorial service I had attended in Toronto for Thomas Berry, geologian and “Earth Scholar”. Someone shared a slide with a photo of Thomas Berry seated on the ground at the foot of a tree. When they had come upon it, he told his walking companions to proceed without him. “I need to be with this tree,” he explained.

 

For those of us who want the scientific scoop on our trees, we learn in For the Love of Trees: A Guide to the Trees of Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm Arboretum that “According to Arthur Buckley (1980), the tree was collected from woodlands nearby and replanted here in 1898. It is a natural hybrid (Quercus x bebbiana) of White Oak (Q.alba), which is rare in the Ottawa valley, and Bur Oak (Q. macrocarpa), which is common to the region.”

 

Trevor Cole, former curator of the Dominion Arboretum, wrote in 1993 of this beauteous tree, “the largest in the arboretum is a Bebb's oak…. It has grown to almost 20 metres with a spread of 22 metres and takes three men with outstretched arms to encircle the trunk. All this from an acorn, in less than 100 years.” 

 

When Thomas Berry was asked why his book The Dream of the Earth was dedicated to an oak tree, he replied, “the tree carries all the meaning of the universe: it is an ecosystem, an expression of the deepest mystery of our existence, the unity and interrelation of all things. From the soil it grew in, to the birds and squirrels that dwell in it, to me living here underneath its branches.”

 

Oak Tree

 

The next time I go to the Arboretum to sit at the foot of Bebb’s Oak, I will stay longer, and I will bring along The Dream of the Earth. 

 

And I will look for the plaque dedicated to Ardeth.

 

Rita Bijons is a founder of Green 13, graduate of LEAF’s Tree Tenders Volunteer Training Program and a volunteer EAB Ambassador with LEAF.