The citizen of New Orleans takes his Northern visitors to Audubon Park,
and points with pride to the giant live oak trees. He does not hesitate,
for he knows that the noble pair called “George Washington,” and “Martha
Washington,” though crippled now by tornadoes, are more noted the country
over than any monument or building in this famous old city. In Charleston
and other Southern cities it is the same. Famous old live oaks adorn the
parks and avenues, and the same trees are planted year by year to take
the places of the veterans when age and storms shall make an end of their
long lives.
These trees wear a crown of green throughout the year. The leaves last
but one year, but they cling to the twigs and remain green until they are
gradually pushed off by the opening of new leafy shoots. In spring the
new leaves are much brighter than the darker old ones. Everywhere the
trees are draped with the sage-green ropes of “Spanish moss,” which is
not a moss at all, but a flowering plant that steals its living by
lodging its roots in crevices in the bark of trees.
The live oak acorns are dainty, dark-brown nuts, set in hoary,
long-stemmed cups. Each year there is a good crop of acorns, and they are
sweet, and pleasant to the taste. The Indians depended upon them for
food, roasting or boiling them. They also skimmed the boiling pot to
collect the oil, which the early colonists said was much like oil of
almonds.
The “knees of oak” that early ship-builders used to brace the sides of
vessels, were taken from live oak trees, where the great boughs spring
out from the short, stout trunks. This natural joint is better than any
bolted union of two pieces of timber. The scarcity of these trees makes
it impossible now to supply these knees, but no steel frame serves the
purpose quite so well. The wood is as beautiful as white oak for the
making of handsome furniture, though it splits more easily, and is harder
for the cabinet-maker to use.
The tree grows throughout the South to Texas; also in Mexico, and Lower
California. Its Northern limit is Virginia.
A friend who has for a near neighbour the majestic McDonough Oak,
patriarch among the noble live oaks of the Audubon Park, New Orleans,
writes interestingly of the habits of this species.
“The live oak sheds its leaves _in the spring_, just before the new
leaves open. So, for a brief time the tree stands leafless. In this
period, however, the tree puts out catkins in great abundance, so that
the tree does not appear bare. These catkins are light brown, and have a
soft, velvety appearance, and a tree has an absolute change of colour.
During this blossom time the splendid form of the trunk and the great
limbs is revealed. When the new leaves appear, the framework of branch
and bough is concealed by leafage so dense as to be impenetrable to sun
or eye. The tree is a symmetrical, shining green dome. The crown of the
McDonough oak is over two hundred feet in diameter.”