Bernheim’s oaks are some of our most majestic and venerable trees. They are planted throughout the Arboretum with the oldest and largest planting being along Bernheim’s main road.
The first trees were planted in 1957 and 1958. Among the first trees planted at Bernheim were sawthooth oaks along with pin & willow oaks. Some of our specimens come from humble beginnings while other have a storied past.
The white oak Quercus alba adjacent to the meadow, across the street from the Education Center is known as the Lincoln Oak. The tree was propagated by Theodore Klein and given to the Arboretum. It is a seedling from a White Oak growing in Albion, Illinois, under which Abraham Lincoln spoke in the campaign for William Henry Harrison. Illinois State Historical Society states “Abraham Lincoln spoke in the Oak grove of General William Pickering in the presidential campaign of 1840.”
In the early 1960’s the two pin oak Quercus palustris on either end of the Garden Pavilion parking lot were transplanted from the Oak Section as 3½ to 4 inch diameter trees.
Bernheim has twenty seven different species of oak with eighteen different oak hybrids and 22 cultivars of various oak species. Bernheim has one hundred and twenty specimens of oak. Bernheim’s oak species are listed below:
- Quercus acutissima sawtooth oak
- Quercus alba white oak
- Quercus aliena Oriental oak
- Quercus bicolor swamp white oak
- Quercus buckleyi Texas red oak
- Quercus castaneifolia chestnut-leaved oak
- Quercus cerris European turkey oak
- Quercus dalechampii Sessile oak
- Quercus dentata Daimyo oak
- Quercus frainetto Italian oak
- Quercus fusiformis Texas live oak
- Quercus georgiana Georgia oak
- Quercus imbricaria shingle oak
- Quercus liaotungensis Liaotung oak
- Quercus lyrata overcup oak
- Quercus macrocarpa burr oak
- Quercus marilandica blackjack oak
- Quercus muehlenbergii chinkapin oak
- Quercus nigra water oak
- Quercus palustris pin oak
- Quercus phellos willow oak
- Quercus prinus chestnut oak
- Quercus rubra northern red oak
- Quercus shumardii Shumard oak
- Quercus texana Nuttall’s oak
- Quercus variabilis Chinese cork oak
- Quercus velutina black oak