Hooker Oak

Hooker Oak was an extremely large valley oak tree (Quercus lobata) in Chico, California. Amateur botanist and local socialite Annie Bidwell, whose husband had founded Chico, named the tree in 1887 after English botanist and Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker. It was featured in the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Eroll Flynn. The tree fell in 1977 and portions of the wood was later milled for use by local artisans.

Discovery

Upon first seeing the tree in 1872, Hooker declared the tree to be the largest of its species in the known world. Since then other valley oaks have been found of similar size. On January 7, 1958, the Sacramento Bee reported that in 1921 the Hooker Oak was over 110 ft (34 m) tall and estimated that 7,885 people could stand under its canopy assuming 2 sq ft (0.2 m²) per person.

Death

When it fell on May 1, 1977, it was nearly a hundred feet tall (30 m) and at eight feet (2.4 m) from the ground, 29 feet (8.8 m) in circumference. The largest branch measured 111 feet (33.6 m) from trunk to tip and the circumference of outside branches was nearly five hundred feet (150 m). Its age had been estimated at a thousand years, but on its demise it was found to be two trees, of 325 years each which had long ago grown into one.