For a few minutes Saturday morning, cameras will be trained on a large and stately oak tree in downtown Benicia.
The tree — designated the city’s first Heritage Tree by the City Council March 15 — has been growing for 70 to 100 years in a portion of what is now City Park.
“The oak is one of the largest and oldest oak trees in Benicia, and has been a silent witness to at least one generation of Benicia’s history,” Wolfram Alderson, executive director of the Benicia Tree Foundation, said Monday when he announced the photo-op event.
The large and healthy California coastal live oak has a canopy radius of about 50 feet and a trunk diameter of more than 3 1/2 feet. It met key criteria as a Heritage Tree as described in the city’s tree ordinance — the first of what Alderson hopes will be many Benicia trees to be designated “heritage.” Read more of this post