Here, Paul O’Hara, a well-known field botanist, tells us about a centuries-old bur oak tree that watches over his hometown of Hamilton. This big bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) grows on Mountwood Ave., halfway up the slope of the Niagara Escarpment behind St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Charlton Campus, one of the city’s hospitals. Paul O’Hara, whose first book, A Trail Called Home: Tree Stories from the Golden Horseshoe, is available for purchase May 4, with the bur oak he admires in his hometown of Hamilton. Oaks are the best pollinator plants in our native flora, and bur oak is a tough, strong tree tolerant of urban growing conditions. If you are considering planting a tree this spring, plant a bur oak and do your part to build the healthy urban forests of tomorrow.

Source: thestar May 04, 2019 11:03 UTC