THE MARYLAND STATE TREE
by Sara B.
The Maryland state tree is the Wye Oak. Some people know the official state tree as the Wye Mills Oak. While it's 95 feet tall, with a trunk 27 feet in circumference and a branch spread of 165 feet, it is growing older and has a greater chance of dying every year.
Right now the Wye Oak is about 450 years old and has lost two gigantic limbs. They used one of the limbs for gavels for Maryland state judges and the other they made into a statue of two children climbing a tree.
The Wye Oak is located on Maryland Route 662 near Wye Mills in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore. When Maryland bought the tree and one and a half acres around it in 1939 it cost Maryland $6,150. The Wye Oak first became our state tree on June 1, 1939. The one and a half acres surrounding the tree became the smallest Maryland state park and the only park containing a single tree. It may be the smallest state park in the nation.
In 1939 a forester that was interested in the Wye Oak raised money for it's care by selling seedlings from the tree's acorns. The Wye Oak drops up to 8,000 acorns a year.