Angel Oak

I saw a painting of it in an art gallery on famous King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. It was calling me from across the room: the Grandmother of all Trees! She had a name and a location – Angel Oak Tree, Johns Island. I had to find her. Miraculously, it was close to where I was staying and my friend drove me there.
Angel Oak lives on Johns Island and is a Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana), very different from our Northern oak trees. An extensive fence around the tree announced that the City of Charleston owns this area and sends its police men to patrol it and protect it against vandalism and tree-climbing bandits. There are multiple signs under the tree reminding visitors not to carve into the tree limbs or climb on them.

Angel Oak is estimated to be 1,500 years old, and is possibly the oldest tree east of the Mississippi. It stands 65 feet (20 m) tall and its crown covers 17,000 square feet (1,600 sq.m.). Many of its limbs are resting on the ground. Heavy-duty metal pipes support branches high up in the air. The longest limb extends to about 90 feet.
This oak tree was previously owned by the Angel family; however, local folklore tells of another source for the tree’s name: ghosts of enslaved people are rumored to appear as angels around the tree.

People young and old wander around the huge trunk and duck under the massive limbs

They run their hands across the rough bark, whisper prayers to it, gaze up with admiration and awe.

The tree appears to have many arms, like a multi-limbed Shiva

and maybe a second tree that seems to embrace the mother:

Looking out towards the young forest surrounding Angel Oak, you can see the puny size of the much younger trees keeping a respectful distance from Grandmother Tree.

Only reluctantly, we leave the green shade of Angel Oak’s lofty canopy. As we stroll towards the exit, we discover a painter who has created two images of her:

He tells us of the albino squirrel he saw sitting on a branch, posing long enough for him to paint its wispy ghost image into the tree.

If this tree could talk, what stories would it tell? In my next post, I’ll write about what else I learned about this majestic tree and the history of the area.

***This photo essay is slightly adapted from its initial version on my Beauty Along the Road blog.

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