This is a story about Google, Wikipedia and a tree from my childhood:
The other day, as I sat in bed resting, I began to think of an old oak tree in Sweden.
This tree was located on Ekero outside Stockholm.
My great-aunt, Magda, owned a summer house on the island and we often visited her there. As a part of our visits, we usually went down to hug this large old oak.
There were too few of us in our family to ever be able to reach all the way around it's massive trunk and join hands. Still, it was a valuable nature lesson for us kids.
I wondered if I could find out more about this tree, so I went to Google and wrote this:
Old oak tree on Ekero in Lake Malaren, Sweden
And up came this:
Ekeby Oak Tree - Wikipedia
The Ekeby oak tree (Swedish: Ekebyhovseken) is an oak tree in Ekerö outside Stockholm, Sweden, close to Ekebyhov Castle. It is the largest living deciduous tree in Sweden by volume.[1]
The Ekeby oak is approximately 500 years old.[2] It was declared a natural monument in 1956.[3] There are many old trees around Ekebyhov Castle; the oak, sometimes called Ekeröjätten (the Ekerö giant) stands alone in a field south of the castle, where it had no competition for space from other trees.[4] It was measured in 2008 as the largest tree by volume in Sweden.[5]
I couldn't believe it! How great to find this tree from my childhood's summer days. It was just amazing. To learn it was an ancient and important tree was even better, I had no idea.
What in the world did we do before the internet?
Looking at pictures of this tree, you will not realize how massive its trunk is unless there's a person in the picture. And while the picture you get if you click on the link isn't the best, at least it does have a person at the foot of the tree.
