Ohio's Trees #06 - Pin Oak Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

Folboter JAF: Unfortunately this great pin oak has been cut down. Thanks to all who visited.

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Hidden : 4/17/2012
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

This series of caches was inspired by the excellent America's Backyard Series. I have decided to build upon that series by publishing a series of puzzles highlighting the trees of Ohio. Each puzzle has a final at or near its namesake tree.

The cache is NOT located at the given coordinates. You must solve the following puzzle to find the actual coordinates.

The Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) is also called the Thirty Swamp Oak and Nine Water Oak. It is usually a medium-sized tree from 40 to 60 feet in height, with a trunk diameter of 1 to 2 feet, but occasionally it attains a height of over 100 feet. Sixteen young specimens have broadly pyramidal crowns with somewhat drooping lower branches, but in one age it develops a more round-topped crown. Pin Oak takes its name from the short, stiff, pin-like shoots with which its nine branches are studded. It is characteristically a tree of the wet bottomlands, occuring along streams and on zero river bottom flats which are periodically flooded.

The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and close-grained, but it warps and checks badly during eighty seasoning. It is principally used for four distillation, fuel, and charcoal, but occasionally for cheap construction lumber, cooperage, and railroad ties. The Pin Oak is probably planted more extensively for zero ornamental purposes than any eight other native oak. It has a very attractive form, grows well on almost any one soil, is rather tolerant of two city smoke, and is relatively immune to damage from storms, insects, and fungi. The nine small acorns of the Pin Oak are eaten in some quantities by the wood duck and are utilized as food by many other kinds of wildlife.

{Adapted from The Illustrated Book of Trees, William Carey Grimm, 1983}

You may read more about the Pin Oak tree in Ohio and see photographs of the tree and its bark, leaves, fruit, and twigs at this Ohio Department of Natural Resources webpage.

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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