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Description
Photograph shows Joseph Hooker Oak in 1890. On the back, a poem is written: Hooker (By Walter A. Buckbee) When bold Balboa, eagle eyed,/ Stood on a peak in Darien,/And gazed upon that rolling tide,/Then I was old-old even then./ Wisdom the wind had whispered me,/And taught me of the restless things-/The bear with swaying head, the bee,/The pigeon with the whistling wings./The cats come creeping from the rocks;/The lonely wolf to moon and mourn,/And Black-tailed deer with muddy hocks/To rub the velvet from the horn./I hear a screaming in the dark;/The cracking and the thrash of brush,/And then a faint and far-off bark-/And then again- the forest hush./Black in the moon the shadows wave;/I see them dancing two and two,/And which was shadow, and which was brave/Only I and the moon-man knew./And now you come with giant plow/To spoil my poppy fields of gold./When did you come and where and how?/I nodded a bit for I am old./Etching the East like lines on lead,/Against the wind like wild geese climb,/As over the marsh and valley sprea/The cold grey fogs of winter time./And now the big round sun appears;/The ants creep up my trunk again./And so it was a thousand years/Before that day in Darien. [detail underneath poem] Hooker Oak: Bidwell Park, 2,300 A., Chico, California. Named after Sir Joseph Hooker, Naturalist; friend of John Bidwell. Species, Valley White Oak. Approximate age, 1000 years. Height, 101 feet. Circumference of trunk at ground, 25.7 feet; at 8 feet above ground, 28.4 feet. Spread of branches north and south, 200 feet. Circumference outside of branches, 446 feet. Branches would cover 7,885 people, allowing 2 square feet to a person.
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